Richardaedwards

Daniel Bigelow

Hi, and thanks for contributing to the Bigelow House and Bigelow Neighborhood articles. I hope you don't mind if I move the information you added regarding Daniel Bigelow and create a new article out of it. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 23:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Great new article on Daniel Bigelow! Glad you found the information from our library useful. – Richardaedwards (¡!¡!¡!¡) 18 July 2007

Further Reading

First, your additions are pretty much WP:SPAM, but if you are going to continue, please remember per the manual of style, the first letter in each word in headers are not all capitalized. So it is "Further reading" not Further Reading. Aboutmovies 19:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the header capitalization issue. I used the {cite book} template since most of the other "Further reading" sections in Wikipedia seem to use that format for citation, which seems appropriate to me as a librarian. I have read more about the template use and will adjust to comply better.

I read the WP:SPAM article, but I'm not sure why you consider our resources fit into that category. The information I added was pertinent to the topic and was not a link to any sort of advertisement for a product, service or company. It was a link directly to the related resource, which is made freely available from the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection. In fact, the cataloging on OCLC for our digital versions shows the Washington State Library as the Publisher. But I thought it would be more informative and helpful in most cases to use the date and publisher of the original paper book in the citation.

By the way, the University of Washington is doing a similar thing with their digital resources from their "University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections." Richardaedwards 21:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI, your link additions are being discussed at WikiProject Spam, where you can see that some users do consider mass adding of any links, even non-commercial ones, spam, so I hope you will be able to understand our concern. Be sure to check out the previous discussion linked to in the current one. And yes we're aware of what the UW is doing, and we're not so sure that's a good idea either. Hopefully we can get some clear parameters in place soon. Thanks. Katr67 23:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding a link to a book, I don't have a problem with. Adding it is available from XXX whether that be Amazon.com, a subscription service, or a library looks like adverstising for that entity, and that is spam. When I link a book in further reading/external links I found on Google Books, I don't add "available online through Google Books" to the entry (see George H. Atkinson). Nor do I add further reading books with the caveat, availble at the Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University even though that is where I found the book. The only reason I can see for adding that bit of info about the library source (since a URL is already there) is to advertise the resource, as in the library. Just because an entity is a government corporation does not mean they are incapable of spam, and Wikipedia is not an indiscreminate collection of links. The more people who use your resource means you can go to the legislature and request more funding, just like a private company hoping to increase traffic to their website to increase revenues. I doubt you agree with me and see this as informing the public and have no ill intentions, but state goverments work much the same as the private sector, see this from the Oregon State Library where they discuss customers and marketing. At the Washinton library you can find that part of "the director’s annual work plan" includes "Marketing library services" which this seems to fit.[1] It is clear that libraries are trying to increase the number of "customers" to their locations. And that is SPAM if done on Wikipedia. Aboutmovies 23:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Please consider using inline citations rather than adding a "Further Reading" sections with subheadings. More instructions are available here and here. Thanks, Cacophony 00:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Inline citations are appropriate for references to sources used in the written entry. Since I am not adding textual commentary to the entries, the use of reference citations is not exactly appropriate which is why I haven't included such bibliographic citations in the Reference or Sources sections. The only place I could think to add them was in the Further Reading section which often exists already in entries and is used for additional reading suggestions not directly cited in the article. I've added that section in some entries in order to try and standardize my approach. Is there another suggestion other than inline citations or references? Thanks. Richardaedwards 18:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to sound snarky, but my suggestion would be to add content, not links. :) FYI, User:Beetstra is developing an essay about the sort of link additions you're doing. I think the the suggestion there about having a WikiProject adopt you is an excellent one. Katr67 18:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

THANKS! This is a good essay that explains a lot of the concerns. In no way did you sound "snarky". I appreciate your pointing it out and the suggestions and I'm glad to discuss the issue further.

The problem, as I see it from the institution's side, is that some organizational staff are not writers or do not have the time or skill to read an entire work and distill it into a section of a Wikipedia article. The intent is instead to use existing institutional records (such as a library catalog record) to allow someone to pull out pertinent information and add the citation including a link directly to the full source online. This allows the reader of the article to then find further, pertinent information easily, which I think is the service such links provide.

I can certainly understand not wanting a library (any library or institution) to add citations to every book they may hold, non-unique, online or not or even worse adding a generic link to their home page or non-specific page.

My thought is that only my institutions unique, rare online available items should be added, and only where they are most appropriate, and rather than mislead readers into thinking that they've been used as references to generate the article text, to add the citations as "Further Reading" instead. I also agree that using the book citation template is the best approach, including the use of the OCLC number to link to their Worldcat database.

But if the user wants to read the pertinent book, and they're obviously online on Wikipedia, then isn't a direct link to the specific title (even if it is on the institution's website) valuable?

Again, many thanks for discussing this issue further. I'll watch that essay, and further discussions, closely. One thing I'd like to see on the essay rather than just a "con" section on "So why consider these link additions as spamming" is a "pro" section on "So why not consider these link additions as valuable information". Richardaedwards 20:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Since I started this thread, just an important note: the sources are valuable, but the way they are added is SPAM. For instance the junk email (i.e. SPAM) that you get offering cheap Viagra is SPAM. The product, Viagra (or in the library’s case the individual book), is not SPAM. Repeatedly placing links on Wikipedia in order to promote a product (in the library’s case the individual book) versus adding content to the article is SPAM. I’m sure everyone would agree that a link to a book on Amazon.com would be SPAM, especially if someone from Amazon.com was adding those links in a concerted effort to promote those books. The only difference is that libraries and archives do not see themselves as commercial entities, and thus do not think they can SPAM. SPAM is the process, not the product being promoted. Aboutmovies 00:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Presentation

WikiGnomes don't do public speaking. And although I'm trying to help you, (assuming good faith and all that) I don't condone your behavior, so I wouldn't be comfortable participating in something like that. What you are doing is against Wikipedia policy, even if no one has blocked you like they did the intern from the Archives of American Art. Until the policy is changed or modified, it's still spamming, and you seem to have ignored my suggestion to contact a WikiProject. Until you're more interested in doing more for Wikipedia than just adding links, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find someone to join your presentation, but I'd suggest you ask at WikiProject Oregon or WikiProject Spam and see if someone local is interested. If you want to comment on the essay, BTW, you certainly can do so on the essay's talk page. Good luck. Katr67 01:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I do appreciate the help. In truth I was hoping for someone to participate in the presentation to explain the Wikipedia point of view as a counterpoint to the institutional view for adding such links. I would hope that, as with most complex issues, multiple points of view could be shared with civility and politeness (which you have done so well that I thought you might wish to continue to express your views in person) so that the issues would be understood by those attending even if no agreement is reached.

I haven't ignored your suggestion to contact a WikiProject, but rather knowing nothing about them simply haven't had the time to read up on them and figure out how to approach it, having been less than 24 hours since I first heard the term. And while I agree that I could post comments on the essay, I want to take the time to do so thoughtfully and time is difficult to find (which is another reason why I don't usually add information directly to Wikipedia articles).

What I did after your previous comments was cease adding further links [see below for revisions to my citation format that resulted during the pause]. I begin to understand the reasons you consider such links "spam" and I hope to engender a discussion among librarians and Wikipedia editors as to whether the value of such links to the user outweighs the issue of being considered "spam". My attempt to engage someone on the Wikipedia side to speak before a group of technical librarians is honestly a hope to make the issues known and understood, not to resolve them in favor of institutions.

Again, thank you for your time and thoughts. Richardaedwards 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Primary Sources versus Spam

I have come to understand several of the arguments concerning treating links from libraries or museums as promotional "spam" and while I would like to add a few more links for what I consider to be valuable primary materials to appropriate articles, I now think it best to NOT include the organizational name or collection which does seem mostly promotional in nature.

The primary material citation should stand as sufficient identification for the user who can then decide to follow the link to the full text of the work or not, as they deem best.

So, for any links I add in the future, I will use this format:

• Last Name, First Name (YEAR). [link to full text Title] (DJVU). Publisher. OCLC number. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help); Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |year= (help)

I have removed the "others" field of "Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection" from my template.

I know that there are still concerns about librarians adding links instead of editing the articles directly and adding links to their own resources, but given the value of these few unique primary resources and the lack of branding in the citations, but I hope this is seen as an improvement.

I will continue to be glad to discuss the issues further in hopes of providing the best information possible to the users of Wikipedia.

Richardaedwards 20:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Watson Squire

Image:WCSquire.jpg: The image is from "Governors of Washington: Territorial and State" by Edmond S. Meany. Published by the University of Washington in 1915 hence the date attribution. A digital version is available at the Washington State Library's website at http://sos.wa.gov/history/publications_detail.aspx?p=30 Richardaedwards 2 June 2010

Image:WCSquire.jpg: could you be clearer on the source? You say it's from 1915, so I'm guessing that it is from somewhere in particular. - Jmabel | Talk 21:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

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