Talk:Contra Costa County Library

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Libraries Low‑importance

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Not a brochure[edit]

I made some edits in August [1] to rewrite the article to be less of a brochure for the library and to better comply with our manual of style. I also changed the number of locations from 25 to 26 because on the library page with locations listed I count 26. I was reverted without comment a few days later [2]. I've gone back in and made most of the same edits again (but incorporated new changes) as there really is no good reason for us to read like an extension of the library's web marketing.

I'm not stuck on the article being the way I've changed it but the tone was very unencyclopedic and POV - promoting library membership and programs, and providing a place for marketing schtick about their efforts at strategic planning - if there is good independent coverage of some of this we might be able to provide appropriate coverage, but the content that was there was very promotional. Also we really shouldn't have non-citation external links in the body of the article or a directory of the library's services in the external links section (an official link is very appropriate, but a directory to all their services is not). So if you don't like the changes - further edits, (and some 3rd party sources!) would be very welcome, or comment here on what you dislike about my efforts and I'll have a go at meeting your concerns, but please don't simply revert back to the old version. Thanks -- SiobhanHansa 01:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry you had your edits reverted, that is annoying. I took a look at the article yesterday because it was on the SFBA list of things needing fixing (and I recently renewed my membership!). I was not bothered by the inline external refs because one could use them to find supporting citations. I am not sure I agree that a reference to a government strategic plan is a poor source for information, including trends, plans, etc. It is not like it is "promoting" a business, but more documenting the trend of library services in CCC and elsewhere. Also, I think that the article needs support for the statements about the other programs, maybe a news article if you feel the web site is not enough? I could find no support for the other statistics in the lede para, so it is just as well that you removed them. I agree that the external links were just redundant. Actually I was thinking that the history section needed some beefing up, but had not begun to look for information about that. Good work, thanks --Tinned Elk 17:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I get a bit of a bee in my bonnet about articles that use lots of inline external links and have little inependent sourcing. I find it looks messy and reads poorly - I have little faith in an encyclopedia article that seems to spend most of its time pushing me towards the website of the subject. Plus I don't really like citations that aren't footnoted, so maybe that's at least partly a personal style issue! We could list links that might provide good springboards to sources on this page in a research section - would that be useful?

On the strategic plan thing I didn't mean that using the strategic plan as a citation was a bad thing - but that referring to the strategic planning process in the way that was done was unencyclopedic. It didn't identify trends just the people involved and that needed changes were identified in some areas - but what those changes actually were was not specified and the relevance to the reader was entirely missing. Used in the right context and if possible with supporting independent documentation strategic plans could be very useful for documenting things like trends or impact (just as that pdf you added was great). Strategic plans are a bit iffy for use as sources on their own because they're not independent, organizations tend to think optimistically about themselves when they go through those sorts of exercises, and especially plans that are made available to the public are frequently less than WP:NPOV. But they can provide great insight into the decision making at the institution.

I had a search on google news for newspaper articles mentioning the programs but failed to find anything. Linking to the website does at least confirm their existence as programs - but should they really be mentioned if they don't garner any independent coverage? I'm in two minds - after all it's a public institution that covers a large population so it seems silly to think there's no real impact - but what that impact is is difficult to report. -- SiobhanHansa 19:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Info Box[edit]

I found the info box {{Infobox_Library}} on the County of Los Angeles Public Library page. Should we add it here? --Tinned Elk 18:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm generally a fan of info boxes so I think that would be great. -- SiobhanHansa 19:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]