“Two hours by sea from the mainland of the state of Washington lies one of the most remote scientific research libraries in the country. There on the shore of an isolated island sits a pink stuccoed, orange roofed, barracks-sized library.” So begins an article from 1952 titled “Library-by-the-Sea” describing University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Library written by Lawrence Murphy, UW Oceanography and Fisheries librarian. 

While not as distinctively-hued as its predecessor, half a century later the Friday Harbor Library is still serving students, faculty and an international group of researchers at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Laboratories located in the San Juan Islands of Washington.

Fig. 1 - Friday Harbor Library, 1952	Fig. 2 - Fernald Laboratory Building, home of the Friday Harbor Library, 2003

History of the Friday Harbor Labs

The UW Friday Harbor Labs have been in existence, in one form or another, since 1904 when Trevor Kincaid (UW professor of zoology and the first Labs’ director), T.C. Frye (UW professor of botany and director of the labs 1914-1930) and some adventurous students spent six weeks living in tents and studying the abundant marine life of the San Juan Islands. “No formal class work was offered; everyone collected and classified to suit himself.”

Fig. 3 – Trevor Kincaid and Colleague, with Great Skate

In 1906, an abandoned fish cannery became the Puget Sound Marine Station. While there was a building, there was, as yet, “no real scientific equipment” of note. In 1909, the cannery was sold and a new campus was built on four acres of donated land. It consisted of a large laboratory, sixty wooden-floored tents, and a combined dining hall-kitchen-social room. “Perhaps the dearest memories of those attending the station during the next 13 years revolve around this great room…students and professors gathered as one large family to eat at the rough 12-foot tables…[and] to study from the books of the gradually increasing library…”It was on this campus that the Labs took on a more formal teaching atmosphere, adding classes and increasing the student population to about 70 students each summer. 

By 1920, the station had a new name and was in need of more space. Dr. Frye talked the military into donating a 484-acre property on Point Caution, which became the new Puget Sound Biological Station. A special act of Congress ceded the land to the UW in 1922. By 1928 there were six laboratory buildings and 100 wooden-floored tents. The dining hall once again served as the central gathering place and housed the library. Echoing today’s budget woes, “because of lack of funds, the growth of the Station Library [was] slow.” By 1930 it contained “about 3300 volumes, most of which [were] bound periodicals and separates,” and in an interesting contrast from today’s model, “require[d] the full time of a librarian to care for the library...” 

It was T.C. Frye’s “hope to make the place known over the world, as well as to render it of real value to the schools and coming generations of the Northwest.” In 1962, a dramatic change to the Labs was the addition of the Fernald Laboratory Building. The building provided the library, for the first time, a space designed for its specific use.

Fig. 4 – Friday Harbor Library Stacks

Fig. 5 – Friday Harbor Library Interior

The Friday Harbor Library Today
In 2003, one still has to leave behind the hustle and bustle of Seattle to reach the UW Friday Harbor Laboratories. The trip requires a two-hour drive north of Seattle through the tulip fields of the Skagit Valley to the sleepy seaside town of Anacortes and the Washington State Ferries dock. An hour-long ride on one of the distinctive green and white ferries through the San Juan Archipelago brings you to the town of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. The Labs are situated about a mile out of town on a 484-acre biological preserve. Deer, rabbits, foxes, wild turkeys and the occasional bald eagle share the Labs’ property with students, faculty, staff and independent researchers from all over the world.

Fig. 6 – View of the Ferry from the Labs.

As T.C. Frye envisioned, the Labs have become an international biological research station. The number of students has increased steadily, and classes are now taught year-round. In 2002, there were 116 independent investigators at the Labs from all over the United States, as well as from Denmark, Japan, Russia, Great Britain, Israel, Germany and France, among others. In addition to graduate and undergraduate students taking classes at the Labs, there were also 58 student investigators and research assistants. Undergraduate research apprenticeships provide the opportunity for small groups of five to eight students to work on an intensive, full-time research training experience with one or more instructors. Things have come a long way from a few students living in tents and dredging the sea bottom with a small fish scow.

The library has also come a long way from a few volumes in the dining hall. It is still located in the Fernald Lab Building and now houses over 19,000 volumes. Although the library is open year-round and 24 hours per day, the librarian is no longer up at the Labs full-time. Because of the open access and the lack of a regularly scheduled on-site librarian, the library must be set up for autonomous use.

The Friday Harbor Librarian is based in Seattle at the Natural Sciences Library, in residence at the Labs for a week at the beginning of fall, winter and spring quarters and for several weeks in the summer. The rest of the time the library is managed from Seattle. During the busy summer quarter, the Friday Harbor Library is staffed daily by a librarian. In addition to the Friday Harbor Librarian, other science librarians from the UW Seattle campus help to staff the library on a rotating basis. 

Many things have not really changed in the over 50 years since Lawrence Murphy wrote about the “Library by the Sea.” However, Murphy could not have foreseen how true his observation that “not all library research is land-bound” would prove to be. 

As some things change, sometimes in dramatic ways, others stay the same. The Labs has been attracting researchers for almost 100 years. One of the reasons for this is the magnificent diversity of the San Juan Islands. Another was summed up in a 1930 description: “Life at the Station is simple and enjoyable. Strong reasons for this are the invigorating atmosphere and beautiful natural surroundings… It all inspires one with a joy of life, a deep breathing of new vigor after the stench of cities and heated winter houses.”

So let us hope that as long as there are scientists at the Labs, there will still always be a need for the “library by the sea.” And as we began, let’s end our tale--with words from Lawrence Murphy. “A library by the sea is necessary for lighting the ocean of darkness. No scientific research lives without library resources. In probing the unknown sea, libraries are especially important; the vastness of the subject impels one to grasp for all recorded knowledge.” Luckily, for the scientists at the Friday Harbor Labs, there now exists the means to reach out to the almost unlimited resources of the electronic library universe. “Thus does the data of one scientist nourish the idea of another scientist, and thereby is our cloth of knowledge woven.” 

Fig. 7 – Friday Harbor Labs from the Water

Maureen Nolan is the Friday Harbor Librarian, University of Washington Libraries