Sharp increase of customers in spite of economic recession

The Seattle Times this morning reported about one institution that had a sharp increase in its business: The Seattle Public Library (SPL). Circulation has increased by one million in 2008, an increase of about 10 percent. I can’t think of many other businesses having such an increase in customers at this time. Well, there is a fixed budged assigned to the library, about $ 50 million – so each time a book, a magazine, or a DVD was checked out, this was funded by the city (and private donors) by $5. This number is higher than I thought it would be, but given the increase of borrowing, this number is declining with increased circulation…

Central Library in downtown Seattle

Some more numbers: The library does not only offer the modern central building downtown, but 26 has branches throughout Seattle. The branch near the University even is open on some of the evening in the weeks so people who work can go there to check out a book or simple be in the reading area and browse books until 8 pm. The central library is not only worth going to because of the books, but it is also an interesting piece of architecture.

The Seattle Public Library is not only good for borrowing a book, but also interesting for its architecture.

I’m also very impressed with the on-line services on SPL’s web page, I have never seen a public library like this in Germany. They have a good search function, but it is also possible to have a personal favourites list and put items on reserve. If something is not available in the branch closeby, it will be taken there from the central library or another branch. Furthermore, popular items such as “The very hungry caterpillar” by Eric Carle – the most popular children’s book of SPL in 2008 – are available in many copies, and one does not have to wait too long to get the actual item. Sometimes, no wait is required at all, as there are several e-books. Before I went to Toronto, I got an travel guide about the city as pdf document – at home I could just print out a couple of pages of information, a map and I was ready to go. When I went to Portland, Oregon, I simply stopped by the library and picked up a travel guide – it would not worth buying a book for $15 for just two days in Portland, but taking it for free…

The library has also a good selection on movies – of course they don’t have the blockbuster movies you would get at the local video store, but they have a lot of classic movies and foreign films. I have already seen some of their Chinese movies as a refresher for my Chinese – I just need to pick them on-line because those movies usually have to be shipped from Chinatown branch or the Central Library.

Fireworks at the “Times Square of the West Coast”

The year 2009 greeted the Seattelites with rain, its typical weather for the season (some would say that this season lasts for 10-12 months but that would be an exaggeration). In the first days of January there has been a lot of rain, compared to what I experienced last fall. In Seattle it took a while for the new year to get to us: While on New Years Eve we saw fireworks of Sydney, Taipei, Berlin as the day moved along, we were one of the last big cities in the world to celebrate. However, the waiting was rewarded as beautiful fireworks were set on the Space Needle, making the Seattle Center surrounding this landmark the “Times Square of the West Coast.” Besides a life concert, some amusement park like attractions were running and everybody got excited when midnight came closer – some even took a bath in the International Fountain. Then, finally, the wait came to the end and a firework show lightened the sky:

The rain caused the snow that was present in Seattle around Christmas to melt, so all the fun of sledge riding and walking through beautifully parks covered in white is no longer possible, but this eliminated also the pain of a traffic mess. Actually in some parts of Washington state the rain was so heavy that interstates had to be closed because of flooding and in the mountains an avalanche destroyed my weekend’s plans for cross-country skiing.

White Christmas in Seattle

White Christmas in Seattle is not very common, local weather agencies say that there is only a seven percent chance in any given year. Bus this year the snow has hit Seattle hard: For more than a week temperatures below freezing were paired with snow fall, so the usual melting that normally starts very soon after the snow comes down did not happen this time and the snow accumulated in the city.

Snow flurries surround those on skis and with sledges crossing 40th street, a busy street on usual days, but now a snow covered road.

It did not really start snowing until December 18th – the day before a big snow storm was expected, but that did not arrive until the next day. Nonetheless, based on this forecast, local authorities had closed down schools, but the kids were not completely happy with that: What kind of snow day is this without a flake of snow? Naturally, the nation was also making fun of Seattle, as other cities regularly experience a lot of snow and do not consider such measure until a couple of inches of snowfall have actually occurred.

Decorated snowman in Fremont.

It showed that this preemptive measure is not false in Seattle the next day, though. When the snow covered the city in white, traffic chaos broke out immediately. Buses could no longer run on the hilly streets, cars were stuck on the streets and the airport was suffering with stranded travellers whose flights were either delayed or cancelled. There is not much snow here in usual years, so there is not much equipment to plow the snow, the city also does not allow to use salt for clearing the streets, resulting in major streets still closed days after the first snowfalls.

There were some accidents, one bus accident made it on the front page of the Seattle Times and there was not much missing to a tragedy that could potentially have left dozens injured or killed when a bus full of students stopped with its front wheels hanging over I-5.

A jackknifed bus blocking a road in the University District.

Getting to another part of city also has turned into a major journey as buses are not running on schedule or are cancelled completely. In the past days, I have seen several buses that were either stuck on ice or jackknifed and waited to be towed. With more people trying to avoid a car ride on the slippery roads, a lot of Christmas shoppers heading downtown and less buses, the remainder of buses was usually packed and bus drivers at times had to refuse to take riders onto the bus and drove past stops.

No sledge available? Be creative and find alternative ways to slide down the hill in Gas Work Park!

On the other hand, kids were happy with the snow and the white layer of snow was most beautiful and reinforced the Christmas feeling. Beautifully decorated snow men magically appeared on every corner, some people engaged in snowball fights. In Gas Work Parks, many people used the hills for a sledge ride and as snow really does not seem to be that common in Seattle, hence few people had “real” sledges. Substitutes for sledges that I saw for -more or less successfully- sliding down the steep hill include not only plastic bags or cardboard, but also lids from garbage cans, plastic laundry baskets and even a rubber boat. The closed streets were also used for sledge riding and some people solved the transportation problem by using snow shoes or skiing: I saw a number of people using cross country skies in the roads.

Last but not least I want to with everybody happy holidays and a happy new year!

Is Thanksgiving better than Christmas?

It’s Christmas now – but about a month ago we had a holiday here with similar traditions: Family coming together, having a lot of food and a holiday that is long waited for by the Americans. Fair enough, one has to wait several months for Thanksgiving, but after that, it’s only one more month until Christmas.

At class, a student told me that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday: After such a long wait he is able to be together with his family, and can enjoy the good food. Furthermore, Thanksgiving is without giving gifts, so the hassle to buy gifts is avoided and one does not have to “pretend to be happy” as he would put it.

Besides Food and Family, Thanksgiving features and other F-word: Football. It’s become some kind of tradition that watching a football game belongs to this specific fall holiday. Left out the Superbowl event, the Thanksgiving matches are probably the most watched games each year.

Food at Thanksgiving: No turkey, but salmon for me.

At the place I am staying, the focus was less on football, rather food, family and friends. With a crowd of fourteen people, we enjoyed great food and played games afterwards. However, we did not have a traditional turkey dinner – nobody in the family would call turkey a favourite so next to the traditional mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie for desert, there was grilled salmon.

While the Wednesday before Thanksgiving most shops (and university buildings, I wanted to go to the library to finish one paper…) close early, all shopping malls and stores are open the Friday after Thanksgiving. Of course, the nation of consumers has to get Christmas presents and the “season” is officially opened with the first Christmas offers. I myself preferred to not shop that particular day, I do not exactly consider shopping in packed streets and stores fun, but it seems that other people were attracted very much by the cheap offers, in New York this even lead to stampede leaving one dead.

Letter from the President

Just a couple of days ago I received a letter from the president. No, not the President but the president from out University, Marc Emmert. He had to tell us that the state of Washington is planing for budget cut and the universities will most likely have to suffer from this. Up to 20% less spending are discussed, for UW this would mean that it has to manage with $167 million less over the next two years.

To make ends meet tuition will most likely go up and planed construction like the make-over for Huskies stadium might be delayed. Emmert found a nice way to argue in favor for those projects in linking them with the jobs that might be in danger elsewhere: “[...] we have a number of capital projects-classroom buildings, research facilities, and other critical infrastructure-that could be accelerated, since such projects are paid for over time. These are exactly the type of economic stimulus projects that would create much needed jobs now and add value to a state resource.” I’ve also heard that the famous Suzzallo Library was not completed in the sixties after the plans that were made in the 1920 could not be financed. Other sources favor the version that construction plans were revised to match the style of buildings that surrounded Suzzallo library in the sixties but were not even planed in the twenties.

In 1922 the Suzzallo Library was planed to look like a cathedral. Later however parts were never put into reality, e.g. the tower. Rumor goes that at that time money was short, too.

Suzzallo library today.

Critical to the university is not only the funding from the state and income from tuition, as most American universities it also relies on a large portfolio that it has accumulated over years. While UW’s endowment fund was worth $1.6 billion at the end of June 2008, this large funds of Harvard or Yale play in a different league with a value exceeding $20 billion. However, Emmert had to inform the students: “Some of the effects of the bad economy have already been felt at the University, notably within our endowment. Like other major institutions across the nation, the UW has suffered losses in our investment portfolio.”

Listen to the Economists: How to fix the Financial Crisis

About a month ago I wrote that these are interesting times for economists – but at today’s discussion I was told that until very recently people were not listening to them. At the discussion about the financial crises and way out of it, Dick Conway of a consulting firm specialized in local economic analysis, stated that some economist saw the crisis coming – but nobody paid attention to them. At least today at UW’s Kane Hall lots of people listened to him and the other experts on stage.

Panel Discussion on the Financial Crisis at UW

The panel discussion was moderated by former Seattle mayor Norm Rice and soon after their opening statements the panelists were debating what kind of curve the US GDP will make in the future: Will it be like an “U”, or like a “V”, or more a “W”? Or even the “Japan-L”? Yu-Chin Chen of my economics department was rather pessimistic and said that there still is a long way to go to get out of the crisis.

Karma Hadjimichalakis of the business school argued that the FED “has thrown out all the rules books” and is now having a completely different policy than just a couple of months ago, it is lending to everybody now: Not only Banks, but also companies. She said that the FED has done all it could, now it is at other countries’ central banks that still have room to maneuver, e.g. the European central bank, which is still focusing on the rather unimportant inflation rate.

However, the financial crisis has not hurt the US position in the world: At least the strong Dollar shows that there is trust in the US. Hope is also there for local Seattle: Conway claimed that Seattle is better of than the rest of the country though it still is hit by the crises and construction has slowed down considerably.

Wolfram Latsch, Karma Hadjimichalakis and Dick Conway listen to Yu-Chin Chen

One day before the elections, the discussants were stressing that it will be hard for the new President, but even some students trying make them opting for one or the other candidate were not quite successful as the experts on stage did not do them this favor in endorsing one candidate. Only in his final remarks Conway showed support for Obama and suggested that the economics department should give McCain a special scholarship so that he can learn some economics.

But what are the ways to get out of the crisis and not get into the “L-shape”? It seems that Keynes (though not mentioned by name) was worth thinking about: There should be less saving now (but later), tax cuts might help and bail-outs for house owners who cannot pay their mortgages were proposed, as well as even infrastructure. In the long run however, US politics has to fix some more issues, such as the growing trade deficit by increase the saving and smaller the foreign debt.

Ballard: Athentic Scandinavia in Seattle

Seattle is famous for its different neighborhoods. They are really not alike sometimes, this might be because they were (and to some extend still are) isolated from each other due to the hills and the many waterways in the city. Therefore it is exciting to tour those different neighborhoods.

Scandinavian flags and Scandinavian style weather in Ballard

This morning I went to Ballard, a “Scandinavian neighborhood” together with Morton, a student from Denmark, so I had an expert for northern European style on my side. We first went directly to the center of Ballard to look out for the Scandinavian history – however next to the central plaza that flew the flags of the Scandinavian countries shops were interesting to have a look at, but they were not Nordic at all: After we went into a store that was specialized in Tibetan items we got into a dollar store, this one had all kinds of stuff one can possibly imagine, so you never knew what to see in next corner. But a little further down on Ballard Ave we found some more Scandinavian flavor, or at least more European.

One of the small stores in Ballard

We than made our way to the Ballad locks, you can go in there for free and watch the ships not only go from the higher water that comes from Lake Washington into the lower Puget Sound but also a change from fresh to salt water. As early as 1917 a fish ladder was build in order to make it possible for the salmon to pass the locks. Now it also has a visitor center and visitors can watch the salmon through glass window swimming by. But apparently the season is nearly over, we just saw one small salmon that was a little belated.

A little further north is Golden Garden Parks, nicely located at the beach of Puget Sound. In the summer there are lots of people in the evenings, I had seen in before when there was a barbecue but this time it was the trees above the beach that were amazing: Colored in yellow and red it was the colors of fall.

Fall colors at Golden Gardens Park

But the fall is not only noticeable by looking at the beautiful leaves, one can also see it in the weather: It was raining today, looks like the raining season has finally begun in Seattle, a city famous for the gray winter with lots of showers. However, after we made it to the Danish Bakery on 80th Street and 24th Ave NW for a piece of cake, Morton told me: “This really feels like home now, even the weather is like in Denmark…”