How Seattle, King County libraries get books into your hands
Nov. 2, 2025 at 6:00 am, Updated Nov. 2, 2025 at 6:01 am
Tony Lauricella, automated materials handling system lead, dumps a tote of books into a singulator to be sorted at Seattle Public Library’s Maintenance and Operations Center in Georgetown on Sept. 11. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
1 of 11 | Tony Lauricella, automated materials handling system lead, dumps a tote of books into a singulator to be sorted at Seattle Public Library’s Maintenance and Operations Center in Georgetown on Sept. 11. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)
By Sara Jean Green, Seattle Times staff reporter
Under a pitch-black sky, Jason Hayes and Chris Little loaded stacks of blue storage totes into box trucks parked outside a Georgetown warehouse that, up until a few years ago, housed luxury sports cars.
On this particular Tuesday, Hayes would drive to Rainier Beach, Columbia City, Beacon Hill and Leschi while Little made stops downtown and at seven sites in the northeast part of the city.
Hayes manages the Seattle Public Library’s materials distribution and fleet services, coordinating drivers who fan out every day to deliver totes filled with books to 26 library branches. Little, a library driver for 28 years, said the “bread-and-butter” of his job is the mobile library, the unofficial 27th branch that holds pop-ups at Seattle Housing Authority buildings and housing complexes for seniors and people with disabilities.
“It’s getting the library to people who can’t get out,” he said. “‘It’s like Christmas once a month’ — that’s what people literally say.”
Hayes and Little are two of the 18 library employees who work out of the Maintenance and Operations Center, a nearly 20,000-square-foot industrial warehouse on Corson Avenue South. Known as the MOC, it serves as the Seattle Public Library’s hidden hub, where an average of 10,000 books a day begin their journeys across the city, with 60% of them destined to fill online holds and the remainder returning to their home branches.
In an industrial park 25 miles to the east, off Interstate 90 in the tiny, unincorporated community of Preston, the King County Library System’s distribution center handles three times the daily volume of books processed through Seattle’s central sorter and serves 50 branches across a vast geography, from Skykomish to Algona.
A borrowing agreement between the Seattle and King County library systems — first signed in 1943 — meansresidents can borrow from both.
For library patrons, it can seem as if books magically appear on hold shelves in their neighborhood branches. But the infrastructure, technology and logistics involved in moving books — along with CDs, DVDs and mobile Wi-Fi hot spots — reflects the value placed on public libraries and is indicative of the Seattle area’s literary culture. The two libraries’ digital collections of audiobooks and e-books are attracting even more readers who prefer listening and scrolling to turning pages.
An abundance of books — and e-books
The Seattle Public Library and the King County Library System are beloved institutions with a combined collection of 6.8 million copies of physical and digital books. E-books and audiobooks are gaining in popularity but have yet to surpass demand for bound and printed copies. Source: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GWj9m/
Seattle Public Library, King County Library System (Fiona Martin / The Seattle Times)
The two library systems are part of a larger ecosystem, said Stesha Brandon, Seattle Public Library’s literature and humanities program manager. Our region boasts numerous local authors and “a committed community of readers” who shop at local bookstores, attend readings, take part in programming, use libraries and support library levies, she said.
“It really is the kind of place where we kind of breathe literature,” Brandon said. “Stories are part of our DNA. Maybe some cities feel it more through music or sports or other things, but I think here in Seattle, we definitely feel it through books.”
Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/how-seattle-king-county-libraries-get-books-into-your-hands/
Discover more from DrWeb's Domain
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
