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Unity Through Disaster: Yakima’s Cleanup after the Eruption of Mount St. Helens

Unity Through Disaster: Yakima’s Cleanup after the Eruption of Mount St. Helens

May 18, 1980, a day many Pacific Northwesterners vividly remember, was the infamous day Mount St. Helens erupted and left much of the state in complete darkness. This day was coined “Black Sunday,” and during the following week, nearly 200,000,000 cubic yards of soot and ash were dumped across Washington and covered nearly half the state.[1] The City of Yakima was in the direct path of the ash plume. To make matters worse, the volcano would continue to emit ash…

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An avid outdoorswoman, Fraser played a key role on the Nisqually River Basin Task Force. Barb Lally Photo
Longtime leader Karen Fraser profiled in new Legacy Washington exhibit

Longtime leader Karen Fraser profiled in new Legacy Washington exhibit

A profile of Karen Fraser of Olympia, who served in the Washington State Legislature for 28 years, is the latest chapter in Legacy Washington’s overview of 1968 “The Year that Rocked Washington.” The profile — part of an exhibit that will open Sept. 13 at the State Capitol — is now online. Change was in the air. Everywhere. It was the year when Vietnam, civil rights, women’s liberation, and conservation coalesced — and a year when tragedy led the 6 o’clock…

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Drawing of two winners
Washington’s top-two primary: What it is and how it works

Washington’s top-two primary: What it is and how it works

Voting has begun for Washington’s 2018 Primary Election, for which ballots can be submitted in county drop boxes or via postage-paid U.S. Mail until Election Day, August 7. This year, Primary’s ballots include groups of candidates vying to collect enough votes to make the General Election, for which ballots are due Nov. 6. Across America, states use a variety of systems to winnow down fields of candidates to finalists, as the National Conference of State Legislatures describes here. In 2004,…

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online voter registring
Online voter registration reaches new heights

Online voter registration reaches new heights

A decade after Washington became the second state in the country to take voter registration online, 35 states and the District of Columbia (that other Washington, as some know it) have followed suit. Under current law, the deadline for online voter registration is 30 days before Election Day, so the deadline for registering to vote in the August Primary Election passed this week, on July 9th. Thanks to the excellent work by our Elections Division, thousands of Washingtonians registered to vote…

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pen writing a tick in the box
Understanding the February Special Election

Understanding the February Special Election

Did you know there’s an election coming up on Tuesday, February 13th? Springtime special elections sometimes get overlooked, especially when it feels like the recent November election is so fresh in mind. But in the February 2018 special election, 65 percent of Washington’s registered voters are eligible to participate — that’s 2,753,553 people. Voters from all but two counties have issues and/or races on the February ballot. San Juan and Skamania are the exceptions, but not all other counties have…

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2016 Proposed Legislation Affecting Libraries 01/15/2016

2016 Proposed Legislation Affecting Libraries 01/15/2016

Courtesy of the Legislative Planning Committee, Washington Library Association Library Related Legislation. The Washington Library Association (WLA) tracks state legislative activity that will potentially affect Washington Libraries. Their tracker is posted weekly on this blog. For information on the legislative process or becoming involved, see the WLA site referenced above.     Library Tracker 1-15-2016  FRI             Bill Title Sponsor Status Date Hrg Date Latest Cmte Mtg Info Companion SHB 1008 Agency data practices audits…

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Wilderness, by Lance Weller

Wilderness, by Lance Weller

Wilderness: A Novel. By Lance Weller. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. 293pp.) Recommendation by PNW & Special Collections April 9, 1865 was the day that General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House. This is often cited as the official date of the end of the Civil War between the Confederate and Union States, but when Brigadier General Stand Watie of the Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered his Confederate Indian battalion, a mix of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and…

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Songs of Willow Frost. By Jaime Ford

Songs of Willow Frost. By Jaime Ford

Songs of Willow Frost. By Jamie Ford. (New York: Ballantine Books, 2013.) Recommendation submitted by:Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. Our protagonist is William Eng, a 12-year-old living at the Sacred Heart Orphanage in 1930’s Seattle. He’s been there since he was seven; no one is interested in adopting a Chinese boy. Only, he remembers his beloved mother, a singer and a dancer, and he remembers finding her slumped in the bathtub, and how she was carried off…

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Truth Like the Sun By Jim Lynch

Truth Like the Sun By Jim Lynch

Truth Like the Sun. By Jim Lynch. (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.) Recommendation submitted by:Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. Jim Lynch’s third novel, Truth Like the Sun, set in Seattle, bounces back and forth between 1962 and 2001, telling us a story that revolves around the Seattle World’s Fair and its fictional chief mover and shaker, one Robert Morgan, a.k.a. Mr. Seattle, a high-flying, entrepreneurial city booster, who maybe loves wine, women and gambling a…

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October 1st Event – Audio Archaeology at Madigan Army Hospital’s Radio Station

October 1st Event – Audio Archaeology at Madigan Army Hospital’s Radio Station

In this Washington State Archaeology Month presentation, Dale Sadler and Duane Colt Denfeld of Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) Cultural Resources Program will examine a fascinating part of Washington State’s history that was discovered during renovations in 2011 at Madigan Army Medical Center on JBLM in Pierce County. At that time thousands of phonograph records and other musical artifacts were found hidden behind a gymnasium wall.