Template talk:Infobox library/Archive 1

Proposal for a revision of {{Infobox Library}}

Introduction

After an initial discussion on the talk page of the List of national libraries (link to the section where it started) and the suggestion to use an infobox on the pages of the individual national libraries for the standard information that the Standing Committee of the National Libraries Section of IFLA, I studied the matter and considered that, given the relatively small number of libraries concerned by the standing committee's project (roughly one per country), it was preferable to extend the existing template than develop a new one. The following subsections describe the proposed changes, plus a few recommendations for use that would be included in the documentation, in order to standardize the infobox as far as possible.

Proposed changes

Code and examples

The template of the revised infobox and some examples are all in my sandbox. The code of the revised template which I propose can be found here There are examples of applications of the revised infobox for the following libraries:

• The British Library, which can be compared to the current one
• The National Library of Greece
• The Swiss National Library

For comparison purposes, the list of libraries where the current infobox has been used can be obtained here.

Changes to fields

The field order has been changed. This can be seen comparing the documentation pages of the 2 variants: the original one and the the new proposed one The following table details the other changes and suggests recommendations for use that would be included into the documentation page of the template/infobox. After updates coming out of the discussion, this table would be moved to the documentation page of the template without its middle column.

Inbetween, counter- or further proposals are progressively included into the table, as long as they do not face a significant opposition, marked as barred for abandoned parts of the initial proposal and underlined for additions coming out of comments, suggestions and initially unknown WP conventions.

Field	Status/change/discussion	Recommendations for use
library_name	Current, original intended kind of name unknown; new content definition.	Designed for the original name of the library. With libraries in multilingual countries, add the other official names, preceded by '<br/>= '. With libraries having a name in a non-Latin script, use the original name in its script, followed by '<br/>' and its transliteration between parentheses.
library_name_en	New field.	Library name in English. Prefer the English name that the library may use itself instead of a literal translation. A redundancy with the page title is likely but does not matter in this case.
library_logo	Current.
image	Current, no change proposed except the integration of the caption into the {{image}} template. To be discussed: effects of the infobox width definition in 'em' and the image width definition in 'px'. It does not work otherwise in the examples available, but it looks like a strange combination of units.	Use the {{image}} template, with in principle the following parameters: '[image file name]|thumb|300px|[caption]'.
caption	Current.	Superfluous: the caption is to be included into the {{image}} template above.
country	New field, to be omitted when the country name appears in the library name (original or in English). To be discussed: cases when the library name contains a geographical adjective that could be misleading or not understood, e.g. 'American Library of...', being US but not panamerican; 'Dutch Library of...' referring to The Netherlands, OK as long as one knows that The Netherlands are populated by Dutch people.	To be omitted when the country name appears in the library name (original or in English).
library_type	New field, introduced to allow a categorization of libraries.	Prefer denominations leading to an existing page describing the type of library, such as Academic library, National library, Public library, Special library etc. Should be omitted when the relevant word is already present in the library's name.
library_scope	New field, introduced to specify the domain in which a library may be specialized.	To be used if a library is specialized in a particular domain but which is not reflected in its name.
established	Current.	Foundation year.
ref_legal_mandate	New field. Intended for national libraries but not limited to them.	Designed for referencing the law or decree establishing the library and defining its mandate.
location	Current	Normally just town and, where appropriate, province. A full address could be entered for libraries having no website of their own. Avoid redundancies, e.g. repeating the country if it is already mentioned in the 'country' field or in the library's name.
coordinates	Current. Probably superfluous: many pages have coordinates displayed on top right, using a {{coor dms}} template or similar.	Avoid redundancy with the coordinates frequently displayed on the top right of the page. Entered with a tag {{coord|[deg]|[min]|[sec]|[N/S]|[deg]|[min]|[sec]|[E/W]|display=inline,title}}. With this code, the coordinates will also appear on the top of the page (but this redundancy is not considered problematic). Remove ",title" from the "display" parameter to omit the display of the coordinates on the top right.
branch_of	New field, for libraries that are known enough to justify an entry in WP but have little or no autonomy, being a branch of another library.	Designed for libraries that are known enough to justify an entry in WP but have little or no autonomy, being a branch of another library.
num_branches	Current.	Number of branches, not counting the headquarters, followed by their location between parentheses.
[header 'Collection']	New header at the beginning of fields describing the collections. Appears only if at least one of these fields is filled.
items_collected	New field.	Allows the specification of the kinds of documents acquired by the library. Prefer denominations having their own page.
collection_size	Current. Label shortened to 'Size'.	It makes reading easier to round numbers to 2-3 significant figures and abbreviate millions by an unspaced 'M'.
criteria	New field.	Allows to specify the kind of documents the library acquires, be it in its legal mandate or its policy.
legal_deposit	New field.	Intended for national libraries, to specify whether they can acquire material through legal deposit, copyright legislation or other kind of agreement.
[header 'Access and use']	New header at the beginning of fields describing the access to collections. Appears only if at least one of these fields is filled.
req_to_access	New field.	Allows to specify the conditions to be met for accessing the collections, such as residence, age, membership of a specific community etc.
annual_circulation	Current. Label shortened to 'Circulation' as its annuality is implied or specified in the data field.	Number of lent or used items followed by the period concerned, generally the most recent past year, between parentheses.
pop_served	Current. Original comment Population of area the library provides service to to be replaced by the recommendation on the right.	Allows to specify the number of potential users when the library serves a specific group, be it by area of residence, age, membership etc. Can be omitted when the circle of potential users is vaguely defined, e.g. for national libraries which, as generally last resource library for national material, may serve the entire world. It makes reading easier to round numbers to 2-3 significant figures and abbreviate millions by an unspaced 'M'.
members	Current. Original comment Cardholders to be replaced by the recommendation on the right.	Number of registered users. It makes reading easier to round numbers to 2-3 significant figures.
[header 'Other information']	New header at the beginning of fields providing administrative and other information. Appears only if at least one of these fields is filled.
budget	Current.	Annual budget with specification of the currency, followed by the year concerned (ideally the current one) between parentheses. It makes reading easier to round numbers to 2-3 significant figures, abbreviate millions by an unspaced 'M' and provide the equivalent in US dollars.
director	Current.	Name of the director. Should be preceded by 'Mr.' or 'Ms.' since first names may be either used by both sexes or unidentifiable by most readers. Unnecessary though for people for whose a page exists in Wikipedia. When a name is transliterated, provide the name in its original script between parentheses. Add the year of the appointment between parentheses. Adding academic titles (e.g. PhD, MA, MLib etc.) is optional.
dir_since	New field. Merged with the previous field.	Allows to indicate the year of the appointment of the director. But to be included in the field 'director'.
num_employees	Current. Label shortened to 'Staff'.	Number of employees, ideally followed by the number of full-time equivalents (input: [[Full-time_equivalent|FTE]]). It makes reading easier to round numbers to 2-3 significant figures.
website	Current.	If the website has a home page in English, link directly to it. Otherwise, specify the language(s) in which the website is.
phone_num	New field. Wikipedia is not a phone directory but an exception should be allowed when nothing is available on the Internet.	Reserved for libraries having no website. It will only appear if the field 'website' is empty.

Other changes

• Increased the width of the infobox to 25em instead of 23em, according to the general documentation about designing infoboxes
• Added 3 group headings
• Added background colour to title and group headings

Clpda (talk) 13:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Specific comments

Library_ tags, image and phone number

I think it's an improvement over the old one which is obviously good. Here's my more detailed suggestions (from a template construction POV):

• Fields with library_ — why? We already know it's for a library, hence the infobox name. On the new fields I'd drop it, but leave it on the old fields.
• Image — Thumb images are great because they allow the users preferences to dictate the size of them. Their use in infoboxes, however, is not so clean. First you will notice the infobox already provides a kind of frame: a thumb image will give the effect of two frames. Second the padding is not even on both sides, the left has a bigger gap than the right. Third, one of the main advantages of using a thumb is user preference sizing, but in this template it is suggested to force the size to 300px. I'd adopt three fields for images:
  • image — raw image name, without brackets, for example Image:Example.png
  • image_size — set a default size, but a size parameter to allow for smaller pictures (avoiding distortion)
  • image_caption (or just caption) — to provide both an image caption and alt-text
• budget — WP:$: you may wish to provide a currency conversion which will allow easy comparison
• phone_num — how are you going to ensure this doesn't show if website does?

Severo^TC 21:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your useful comments.

• About field names library_, I agree with you and shall remove this bit if there is no strong later opposition to this idea.
• About images, I most probably agree as well, as I had a struggle finding a coding working with my examples. I must admit that I don't master this matter enough to provide a fully clean solution. I had surprises, for instance, with the image of the BL, using the full screen if not forced by the 'px' parameter or staying on the data column despite the 'colspan="2"' statement. So, I'd be happy to get help for a perfect coding.
• About budget: excellent idea, I'll see how it can be implemented.
• About phone number, there is a statement in the code displaying it only if the field 'website' is empty (the main point is the '!' before 'website'):

  {{#if:{{{!website|}}}{{{phone_num|}}} | <tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Phone number</th><td>{{{phone_num}}}

Clpda (talk) 21:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You could try something like this for the images:

{{#if:{{{image|<noinclude>-</noinclude>}}} |
{{!}} colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" {{!}} [[Image:{{{image}}}|{{{image_size|230}}}px| {{#if:{{{caption|<noinclude>-</noinclude>}}}|{{{caption}}} }}]]
{{!}}-
}}
{{#if:{{{caption|<noinclude>-</noinclude>}}} |
{{!}} colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" {{!}} <small>{{{caption}}}</small>
{{!}}-
}}

Severo^TC 21:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The logo field will also need an image sizing parameter. I'd suggest using the same code as above, although I'd replace the alt-text with Logo or similar. Also, maybe the coding could be converted from the semi-html structure to full wikicode? Severo^TC 22:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I'll duplicate the code in my sandbox and test all of this. Kind regards, Clpda (talk) 22:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Studying more closely your proposal about images and trying to implement the code you kindly provided, I find this very convenient for the editors who will just create or update the infobox and have no idea about the parameters of the 'image' tag. I copied the code in replacement of the initial corresponding bit but it didn't work immediately and I had to fiddle with it a little bit:

• inserted the tr/td HTML tags, otherwise the image appears on top of the page, outside the box
• removed a bit of duplicate code about caption; the caption as parameter of the 'image' tag apparently appears only if the parameter 'thumb' is present before the size

I kept the rest, including parts the role of which I don't really understand, such as noinclude-hyphen-/noinclude and the exclamation mark between double-braces. But I hope I found a middle way that could be satisfying. I'll be grateful if you can check the new code at User:Clpda/Revised_template:Library2 and its application in one example at User:Clpda/Sandbox/SNL_revised2 (where I defined a different width than the default, just to check/demonstrate). I know that making a single example isn't that good, but I'll extend this later to the BL+NLG pages. The documentation on this page has not yet been adapted either.

I'll be happy to read your comments and thank you again for your help. Clpda (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that this applies to photographs [of libraries] only. I couldn't test logos because they are (often/usually) protected. A bot replaced the BL one, which I had taken from the original page, with a warning on the two examples on my sandbox, although it was in a sandbox - i.e. not intended for publication. Anyway, beside lacking the possibility of this being tested in an authorized way, logos are likely to have so different forms that the sizing parameters might well be better left in the infobox - a template cannot generalize everything... Clpda (talk) 21:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Branches

Received from a non-Wikipedian librarian: Branches may have a visibility of their own and deserve a page on Wikipedia. It would therefore be useful to link them to their mother institution through a tag like 'branch_of' . I agree with this proposal and shall add such a field to the template (which will remain optional, of course, like all other fields but the original name). Clpda (talk) 23:57, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Per a note on my talk page, many infoboxes for places ({{Infobox University}} or {{Infobox nrhp}} for two examples off the top of my head) have the field in the infobox. This allows for the coordinates template to be moved there and out of the text where it can look awkward. Using the paramaters (most editors I know prefer the {{coord}} with a proposed migration to only that template) of the coordinates template to make the coords appear both in the title and inline via this type {{coord|12|34|12|N|45|33|45|W|display=inline,title}} of entry. Additionally, I believe it is an optional field, thus those who want it there can have it there, and those that don't can opt not to. That should be the norm for most of the fields, this way you have maximum adaptability. Aboutmovies (talk) 01:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I had tried to add the coordinates within the infobox but failed. I'll test again with the additional information you provided and amend the recommendations accordingly. Clpda (talk) 20:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

other new fields

ref_legal_mandate

This can better go in the text. DGG (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wellll, I see your point but I'm not entirely convinced. Whereas I agree that references usually appear at the bottom of an article and that, in addition, many references may be unintelligible to English speaking readers, I thought that a link to what formally established a library is important. The label could be renamed, i.e. widened, since that link could also simply lead to any kind of official registry where the library is recorded. I still think that a kind of reference showing some legitimacy of a library could have a space in its infobox. Clpda (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

collections

This will normally be too extensive for an infobox; when very specific can be shown for type of library, e.g. "law library" DGG (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

'Collections' is a not a field but a header on top of (more concise) fields. So, I do not really see your point. Clpda (talk) 22:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I am interested in adding information about special collections to library infoboxes. I will have to see if I can find an example of a page whose box uses a header. Would one be able to use multiple headers in a page? For example, I am looking to add an infobox to Bancroft Library. Could the original Bancroft collection and the newspaper photographs collection that they have, as examples, be includable as separate collections? I think, also, that a collection would need a name. For example, there is a "Stan Marx Collection" in the UC Fresno library for books and materials related to Lewis Carroll and 'Alice in Wonderland'. And there are specific Alice collections at Columbia (NY), in the Ransom library in Austin (TX), in the public library in San Francisco (CA), in Princeton (NJ), and of course in many places in the UK. I know that collections are sometimes identified in this way and sometimes are not, but there it is. It had occurred to me that, since a library infobox is embeddable, one could embed such an infobox for each special collection. No? RayKiddy (talk) 19:49, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

dir-since

Also more suitable for the text. Infoboxes should be kept concise. DGG (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Or what about an optional addition to the 'director' field, e.g. [field:director] Ms. XY (since [year]) ? Clpda (talk) 22:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Deadline, consensus, application

There has been no further discussion on this page since the 13th of July (later edits were merely updating the proposal description according to comments and suggestions received). Although some points are formally still open (e.g. no reply from DGG), is it reasonable to fix a deadline, I'd suggest the 5th of August 2008, to consider that consensus has been reached and apply the proposed changes (which I shall then do the next day or so) ? Clpda (talk) 21:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Since there has been no more discussion since then, I would just go ahead and apply your changes. You've given enough time for people to comment, I think. If some points are still open, you could ask people on their talk pages if they have any further input, but I think it's safe to assume that if they haven't responded by now then they don't. Template talk pages get hardly any discussion in my experience, so I doubt you'll hear from anyone else until you actually make the changes. -kotra (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your encouragement. For the remaining open points, DGG has explicitly declared on his user page that he follows discussions at a single place and I understand his silence on this page as an agreement (or at least an indifference regarding to the only remaining point where I kept my stand). I'll follow your advice to be bold on this one and shorten the deadline to 12:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC). I'll then apply the changes, update the documentation and the real infoboxes I used as examples. Clpda (talk) 21:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

...which is now done and ready for checking. Clpda (talk) 14:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Image parameter

Does not appear to be working. See Duluth Public Library.--Traveler100 (talk) 06:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Worldcat Library ID parameter?

Should we add a parameter for the "Worldcat Library ID" (my informal title; don't know what's the actual name), so that it could create a link to a library's catalogue such as this? --bender235 (talk) 15:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this buys us anything. As I understand it this is library-submitted business information which is almost always accessible (and more likely to be up to date) from their website. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hm, I thought one could search the individual library's catalogue on these Worldcat subpages, but apparently one cannot. Okay, then you're right: doesn't buy us anything. --bender235 (talk) 08:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)