Talk:List of Carnegie libraries in Alabama

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Objection to deletion[edit]

First I'll reproduce the policy to which this page has been proposed to violate:

[Wikipedia is not] Excessive listing of statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. In cases where this may be necessary, (e.g. Opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008), consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists.

As the original creator of this article, I feel it does not qualify as an excessive list of statistics. It's a detailed description of fourteen historic buildings in Alabama, which provided (and, in all cases, continue to provide, though mostly in different buildings) free access to libraries for thousands of Alabamans at the turn of the 20th century. It's not an indiscriminate list of buildings, but a targeted list. The entire reason for its creation was to avoid a sprawling, excessive list that was decreasing the readability of Carnegie library (old revision, diff).

Furthermore, the first pillar of WP:5 states that

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.

This article incorporates information from a gazetteer, essentially acting as a geographic directory for these buildings--as nearly as I can tell, a directory which does not exist elsewhere online and only in relatively rare books in print.--McMillin24 _contribs^talk 07:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]