The Beacon Hill Branch Library is a branch of the
Seattle Public Library
The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The syste ...
in the
Beacon Hill Beacon Hill may refer to:
Places Canada
* Beacon Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, a neighbourhood
* Beacon Hill Park, a park in Victoria, British Columbia
* Beacon Hill, Saskatchewan
* Beacon Hill, Montreal, a neighbourhood in Beaconsfield, Quebec
United ...
neighborhood.
Beacon Hill is one of five branches, all south of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal
The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the city of Seattle, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately difference in w ...
, that saw declining use in the 2010s, possibly because job-seekers in the city's less affluent southern half had been using libraries during Seattle's
2008-2012 recession.
[
]
History
Beacon Hill Branch was housed in a number of locations, including a location at 2519 15th Avenue South converted to a library in 1962.[ It was described as "the poster child for Seattle's worn-out library system", a "crumbling 1920s-era variety store with more books than shelves to hold them".][ A new library was funded by a "Libraries for All" bond in 1998. The building opened in 2004 and included stone from the same quarry as the downtown Central Library.
In 2017, the library underwent a $696,000 renovation to increase the number of electrical outlets for digital devices and add a "laptop bar", install ]LED lighting
An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps
and can be significantly more efficient than mos ...
, de-clutter the checkout area, and make other improvements for patrons.[
]
Public art
Public art installed at the library includes ''The Dream Ship: Beacon Hill Discovery'', a kinetic sculpture atop a spire rising through a hole in the roof at the building's entrance. Other pieces include haiku
is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...
carved in stones and rain scuppers shaped like ravens' beaks.[ Four years after the opening, the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' said of another Seattle library design that it "shuns architectural drama" unlike the Beacon Hill and other contemporaries.][
]
References
Sources
*
External links
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{{Authority control
2004 establishments in Washington (state)
Beacon Hill, Seattle
Libraries in Seattle
Library buildings completed in 2004
Public libraries in Washington (state)
Seattle Public Library