This past weekend we hosted some students from the University of Washington iSchool student ALA group! This was the return trip for the trip some of us took down to Seattle last January. We’re hoping they will continue to happen in the future!

While we (or at least I) didn’t get any photos of the tours we went on, we at least got a couple of many of the students involved.

Back row, left to right: Twanna Hodge (UW), Xochitl Rocha (UW), Anna Ferri (UBC).
Front row, left to right: Christina Appleberry (UBC), Heather Newcomer (UW), Sarah Leslie (UW).

Earlier this year we went down to Seattle to visit the student ALA group there. We had a great time! Here are photos of some of the things we saw.

Here’s part one, part two, part three, and part four.

Okay, so remember how in the last post I said we didn’t just go to libraries while we were in Seattle? I lied.

We got a super sweet tour of the Central Branch of Seattle Public Library! (Photo actually from an earlier trip.)

Their automatic sorting machines.

Their break room was on a floor that is mostly for admin staff, and is completely empty on the weekend.

A long way down!

From leff: Daisy, David, Eka, Matthew, Kelsey, Anna, Sarah.

Models of the library from before it was built.

A boat! What doesn’t this library have?!

Checking out the non-fiction section with our awesome tourguide Lisa!

All libraries need a cat right?

All libraries need a negative round right?

The nonfiction section is super neat, it’s a series of ramps in a spiral, so you can walk through the entire thing from 000 to 999.

On the computer level (or “living room”) they have this super neat sign. I think this one is showing representations of what people have checked out.

Computers!

All libraries should have these. So cool!

Also, weirdass video art you have to watch while riding the escalator. All libraries should have these too.

Up to the “red floor”.

It’s like a weird sci fi movie set or something.

Apparently there’s meeting rooms on this floor, but they were all locked.

The second floor.

Games in the teen section!

The Starbucks teen section. Lots of corporate sponsorship around.

We were there while there was a playoff game happening.

People were super excited to watch the game on huge projection screen. Also, this room is pretty nice.

Kids section.

Anna is short.

The floor.

Disability services.

While I think this is super cool, I really think it exists because there aren’t enough Chinese speaking staff members to catalogue the material properly.

On the way to the bus back to Vancouver.

The end! Thank you Seattle! Thank you SALA at UW! We’ll come see you again soon, but first you have to visit us!

Earlier this year we went down to Seattle to visit the student ALA group there. We had a great time! Here are photos of some of the things we saw.

Here’s part one, part two, and part three.

So in between hanging out with library students, and checking out lots of libraries, we also had time to do some other stuff while we were down in Seattle!

We rode buses!

We checkde out the Seattle Public Market (comics and books and pastries!)

And fish I guess. I tried to ignore those.

And this thing! The gum wall! How on earth does this thing have a Wikipedia article?

Vancouver is clearly missing out by not having a tourist attraction this gross.

Plus: Mysterious robots!

And cephalopods! They led us to a store that sold sexy librarian embroidery patterns.

Even when we’re not being library nerds, we’re being library nerds.

Earlier this year we went down to Seattle to visit the student ALA group there. We had a great time! Here are photos of some of the things we saw.

Here’s part one, and part two.

Next up was our visit to Suzzalo and Allen Libraries!

To be honest, I’m a little surprised nobody has broken this. Maybe it’s just really solid?

Once inside we had some time to kill before our tour started. Our intrepid leader/ALA Chair managed to find a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time.

Even better! One with no bumpy edge bits to help.

Up the stairs.

Gotta love science themed stained glass windows.

You can’t really read this but the library claims to have the world’s largest book.

It doesn’t actually look that big to me. I feel like I could just go out and bind some posters or something. I guess there’s some “official” guidelines as to what a book is.

Really cool looking, but also empty. Apparently it is really cold and there are no electrical outlets.

On the left of our group is our rad tour guide Caitlan!

Fancy globe.

The University of Washington Media Centre Center!

Hilariously I had asked only minutes before if they had laser discs.

I think this was one of the places where the tables were also whiteboards.

Super huge (28 foot, 8.5 metre) pre-historic crocodile!

They have a recurring theme of birds throughout the library.

A lot of them are carrying stuff, signifying various types of knowledge I think.

I really liked the pun-ny name of this collection. For those that don’t get it the Puget Sound is the body of water that Seattle is built on.

A few weeks ago we went on a trip to visit the student ALA group at the University of Washington! Here’s the first set of photos.

The second library we visited was the Odegaard Library, which was apparently the undergraduate library.

We didn’t get an official tour of this one, but we had a good time wandering around and looking at stuff.

It had only recently finished being remodelled, so even our hosts hadn’t seen it all!

There were hundreds of giant Apple computers. I can’t imagine how much they cost.

There were also some computers set up for video editing. Check out that beast of a monitor on the right!

I checked to make sure they had the important books available.

I found this sign hilarious.

What do you put directly below a sign saying “PRINT”? Why DVDs of course!

Recently a number of us at UBC went down to meet up with the student ALA group at the University of Wasington iSchool! It was a super great time, we met lots of awesome people, and got to check out some neat libraries. (Oh, and by the way border guards think it’s kind of weird when you say you went to Seattle to meet up with a student group and go on tours of libraries…)

Here’s a sign at the entrance to their iSchool (and they actually call it that!).

Here we are walking towards the first library we visited: the Gallagher Law Library!

Jonathan, a student in UW’s Law Librarian program, gave us a great tour!

Lots of study space!

You can see the compact shelving in the background.

Here you can just about see everyone on the trip (excluding me)! From left: David, Sarah, Jonathan (all UW students), Kelsey, Eka (at the very back), Anna, and Daisy.

This popsicle wasn’t at UW, but it was the first thing I took a photo of during this trip.