Haggard Hall is Western Washington University’s adequate half of a library. It contains nothing particularly special for a library. Of course it has the abundance of books and bookshelves, accommodations for a sizeable computer lab with color and black and white printers. The upper floor has many desks and chairs. On the base floor next to the computer area is a Student Technology Center where Undergraduate students work to assist with any technical issues be it with library equipment or personal laptops. The opening to Haggard Hall is a particularly interesting one. It has two access doors on the ground level or can be accessed via sky bridge, connecting it to Wilson Library, the other half of Western’s library. Overall, Haggard Hall does about what one would expect the average university library to do, in terms of being a library, a social hub, and a workplace.

According to Lynn, A. Staeheli, “One could almost think about context (of place) as identity-of-place…”. The identity of Haggard Hall is largely defined by its ability to accommodate the needs of the students. It contains many educational books, though most of the books reside in the other half of the library, Wilson Library. It does provide adequate space for a computer lab but many of the computers do not contains up-to-date operating systems such as Windows 10. Many still run on windows 8 or 7. Furthermore, the printers do a decent job of printing documents though my experience has been a confusing one with the printers. The printers charge money per side of paper you print (color pages costing more than the standard black and white pages). One time, a printer was malfunctioning and I selected the print option on my document but the printer did not print it. That did not, however, keep the system for charging my student account the nickel per page of the document (the document was 26 pages, front and back, so I was a little pissed). The printers are fine as long as they decide to work.

According to Norman Cousins, “A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life”. While the library does do everything should do (and maybe a tiny bit more) it does not particularly feel unique compared to many other libraries I’ve visited. Even compared to other campus libraries I’ve seen at other universities seem incredibly similar to Haggard Hall. The feel of Haggard is that of a typical university library. Not to say that’s a bad thing by any means, just that it does not possess anything inherently unique to Haggard besides it location on the map.

Overall, Haggard receives the score of 5.5/10 on my scale. An adequate and fully functional library, but nothing special.