Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Guideline

This guideline is also discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Working with museums

This project page serves as a guideline for writing quality and standardised articles about museums. As you can see by browsing the diversity of articles about museums, the suggestions on this page are merely guidelines.

Museums which are also on the National Register of Historic Places, Architectural monuments, or Culture and Arts institutions can benefit from the guidelines of projects dedicated to each of those categories.

When to create a new article for a museum[edit]

Writing about the smallest of museums can be difficult due to the lack of source material, especially when compared with major museums. Some of the smallest museums may form part of a village, town, rural municipality, civil parish, county or council ward.

Small notable museums could have their own articles, but if there is no more than a couple of paragraphs that could be said about the museum it may be best practice to merge the museum article into the location article.

Article structure example for a museum[edit]

General guidelines: references are a requirement of any article, preferably inline citations. Alternate headings are listed and referred to as "Optional headings" below. Section titles should generally not start with the word The (see WP:HEAD), nor repeat the name used in the title of the article.

Article name and infobox[edit]

The name of the article should be the current, formal title of the museum. Other accepted names can be indicated in the first sentence with bold text. If the article name differs from a listing the listing name should usually appear as one of those bolded alternative names. If there are multiple places with the same name, the article should usually be entitled Name (City, State), or Name (City, Province). For disambiguation of museums, see the Naming conventions.

The common infobox for museums: {{Infobox Museum}}

{{Infobox museum
| name                = 
| native_name         = 
| native_name_lang    = 
| logo                = 
| logo_upright        = 
| logo_alt            = 
| logo_caption        = 
| image               = 
| image_upright       = 
| alt                 = 
| caption             = 
| map_type            = 
| map_relief          = 
| map_size            = 
| map_caption         = 
| coordinates         = <!-- {{Coord}} -->
| former_name         = 
| established         = <!-- {{Start date|YYYY|MM|DD|df=y}} -->
| dissolved           = <!-- {{End date|YYYY|MM|DD|df=y}} -->
| location            = 
| type                = 
| accreditation       = 
| key_holdings        = 
| collections         = 
| collection_size     = 
| visitors            = 
| founder             = 
| executive_director  = 
| leader_type         = 
| leader              = 
| director            = 
| president           = 
| ceo                 = 
| chairperson         = 
| curator             = 
| architect           = 
| historian           = 
| owner               = 
| publictransit       = 
| car_park            = 
| parking             = 
| network             = 
| website             = <!-- {{URL|example.com}} -->
| embedded            = 
}}

As much information as possible should be included in the infobox, with a reference.
For Protected areas (National Parks/Landmarks/etc.), use {{Infobox Protected area}} (the protected area infobox).
For churches, synagogues or other religious buildings, use {{infobox religious building}}.
Combined infoboxes are sometimes possible and desirable.

Lead section[edit]

The introductory section should not have a section heading. It should introduce the article about the museum, serving as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable.

This section should follow the guidelines specified under WP:LEAD. Additionally, a couple of items should be included in the lead section for city articles, including:

Name of museum and location in city, state, county or province and country.
Contemporary owners, governing body
Type of museum
Brief note about historical roots/founding
Nicknames, if notable
Primary exhibits supporting the economy, visitors of the museum
Notable unique characteristics and characteristics commonly associated with it
Lead section must not exceed four paragraphs.
Avoid images in the lead section, use the infobox instead.

Names of the museum should be given in each of the state or province / countries official languages dependent upon if it is a national, state or provincial museum. Pronunciation of the museum name should be in IPA as per Help:IPA/English, though can also be in the main local language(s) if thought helpful.

Two 'good article' criteria:

The lead should adequately summarize the content of the article.
There should not be anything in the lead not mentioned in the rest of the article.

History[edit]

This section provides a narrative of the museum's history. This is particularly relevant for museums that were founded as such. Museums that are preserved buildings or vessels that had their own history before becoming a museum may have a number of historical sections first describing their existence and use before their preservation. (Ex: Manzanar)

Topics that can be covered include, but are not limited to:

the origin of the museum
development
foundation, founding committees,
original inhabitants (if applicable)
original surrounding settlements
occupying owners/transitions of owners
reasons for settlement/growth/development
dominant activities
events that shaped the museum
religious, sports or military background if applicable

Most libraries will have books on local museum history. Be wary of loose interpretations, especially when using internet or promotional sources.

History sections can easily become long with more detail than appropriate for a general overview. While there is no strict rule on how long a section may be, as a general rule of thumb, more than 10 paragraphs or the use of subsection headings might indicate that it should be accompanied by a History of _ main article (using the main template). Describe the minimum of what is required to understand where the museum and community has come from and let the History of _ article give the details.

Location

You may note here where the museum is located / how it came to be there, and any relevant connecting infrastructure, geology, topography. This could include distance to a notable capital, city or town which made an impression upon the museum historically.

Origins of the name[edit]

This bit of history can often be included in the lead or history section. If there is controversy or a major story about the name, that can justify a subsection header or section on its own. It could also be titled as etymology or toponymy. If the museum has a nickname, another name or a name in another recognised regional or national language, this can also be presented here.

Early residents[edit]

If the museum is located in a restored residence or restored building, a separate section on their life and use of the building is appropriate. The section can be named after them, if it was a single family. Notable persons from the settlement if they satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (people), and any notable births, and residents in the museum's early history can all be included where applicable.

Do not use a list format in this section. Please write this as prose, reference each person, and avoid the word "famous".

If this is a short section, and not the central focus of the museum, it can be a subsection under "History". If the museum is primarily a depiction of the life of various early residents, there could be multiple sections here for each era of resident.

Design and layout[edit]

One or more sections about aspects of design for which the museum is famous. These can be consolidated into a single section, or a series of top-level sections, or subsections, depending on the importance of design to the identity and use of the museu, and the relative importance of each component. Potential topics to include:

Architecture[edit]

Refer to the Template:Infobox Modern building or Template:Infobox Historic building for the main architectural points for this section whether the museum is housed in a modern or historic building.
For example these elements should be elaborated upon or set into prose style within the body of this section... such as architect, architectural style, client, engineer, construction start date, completion date, cost budget, structural system, number of floors, .
Inaugurated, Height, Diameter, Floor area
Restoration, reconstructions, remodelled dates, alteration, expansion, modernisation, additions, wings, types of changes or upgrades, cost.
Above points as applied to additional buildings (outbuildings) on site

Interior and contents[edit]

Use and design of rooms in the museum interior. Plan or layout of rooms as related to exhibits, or historical architectural layout for original building use. May be named Design, Galleries, Interior and exhibitions, Collections, or Exhibitions. Permanent, travelling or rotating, present and past collections can also be mentioned.

This section can relate the size of the collection, its size relative to other collections of its kind, and highlight some key items in the collection along with providing some context for their significance. On the other hand, some museums, such as Kenilworth Castle are more about the history of the location and the building(s) than about the contents.

There are a number of options for presenting the items on exhibit. The predominant style among GA museum articles[1] is to provide paragraphs of prose explaining the collections, and a few paragraphs explaining the significance of a few key items. Pictures of key items are interspersed. For example, Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals, Kentucky Railway Museum, and Indianapolis Museum of Art follow this pattern. Due to their extensive collections, British Library and Musée du Louvre each highlight several collections with their own sections in this style.

An alternate technique is to present a tidy list of highlights, like National Gallery. In this case, there is more detail on the collection in its own article.

If some of the collection is indoors and some outdoors, interpret this guideline loosely so as to group items appropriately in the article.

Gardens and park[edit]

If the exterior grounds of the building is also designated and used for the museum, then describe their applicable use appropriately.

Operations[edit]

How the museum is currently overseen and preserved. Including information about its management and operations. Potential topics to include:

Owners[edit]

Board of directors, curator, partners, governance, body or authority responsible for management. Any funding arrangements can be mentioned. How the museum is owned or governed today, is it part of the national government, a non profit organisation, does it have a board of directors? Have there been changes in the owners, and what was the former owner/ status of the museum? Note any grants, or logos adopted by the museum

Reports, preservation, future plans[edit]

Economic impact, economic expenditures, publications, newsletters, educational, or research programs.

Ongoing or notable preservation or regeneration efforts, and how the museum is handling them while providing some level of public access.

If there are specific and notable future plans that don't fall under general operations, referencing published material about that development, this can have its own section.

Use and recognition[edit]

This material should all be mentioned briefly in the lead or history sections. For large museums, there may additionally be enough detail to have a separate section about how the museum is used.

Visiting the museum[edit]

Tours, celebrations, anniversaries, visitors per year could all be in this section.

Notes on transport infrastructure in and around the museum can include

Major highways, street layout (if notable or applicable)
Mass transit (if applicable)
Intercity transit including Amtrak, buses, major airports
Are bicycling or walking significant transportation modes?

Related points of interest[edit]

Other related points of interest, war memorials, plaques, monuments, natural landmarks can be mentioned here.

Awards[edit]

Awards received by the museum, in its current form, or historically.

In popular culture[edit]

(Optional heading. Alternately, simply: "In film" or "In literature" if only one is applicable.)

Any appearances in notable books, films, or television productions.

References / Notes[edit]

NOTE: Reference sections may follow a number of styles, including separate "Footnote" and "Further reading" sections; please refer to WP:REF for more information. List all sources used in building the article in this section. Instructions for doing this are at Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Either title is acceptable for this section, but not both together (see WP:CITE#How to present citations for details).

Every article on Wikipedia must provide reliable citations, and thus this section is mandatory per policy.
Please use {{reflist}} for a standalone "Reference" section.
Try to avoid over-using citations in lead sections.
Consider using an approved citation template to better organise and present references.
When providing a reference, please note that the word or punctuation goes before the reference, with no space inbetween. Full stops should not appear after a reference (e.g., "this is a quote".<ref>Smith J. (1234), Example book</ref>).
Don't let any wonderful museum articles go to deletion because of little, few or no references.

Some examples can be found in the following featured articles:

External links[edit]

External links should be added only rarely, and in accordance with the guidelines found in WP:EL. Consequently, this section should only rarely be found in most articles. In particular, the use of links as described in WP:SPAM should always be avoided. Always restrict external links to the WWW to the External Links section, or within an appropriately tagged reference.

A link to some of the official websites should be provided here, such as the official museum home page. Providing links to every commercial, educational, or other entity within the museum exhibits is not appropriate for this section. Information about such entities should be written into the article, with links to Wikipedia articles on notable entities. Remember, Wikipedia is not a linkfarm, and excessive lists of links on articles will be removed.

If any links are deemed appropriate for this section, they should always be accompanied by an appropriate description of (a) what they are, (b) their justification, and (c) the date on which they were added in the form "Accessed: 7 July 2007" (WP:EL#External links section gives some more information about this).

External links used as a form of verification for facts found in the text of the article should be treated as normal references, e.g., cited by enclosing them in <ref>...</ref> tags and conforming to the style of web-based references, which also includes a "Retrieval date" component. They should not be added to this section (see WP:EL#References and citation). Wikipedia:Citation templates gives useful information about what should be entered and the order in which the separate components of a web-citation should appear.

Footer templates and categories[edit]

COORDINATE TEMPLATE

Coordinates, usually in the infobox but sometimes added when there is no infobox, are directly useful to some readers to find a given location and provide data for region maps.

Latitude and longitude should be present only once and linked to the mapping services by using either {{Infobox Museum}} or {{coord|lat|long|type:city(population)_region:ISO3166-code|display=title}} {{coord|41|48|36|N|87|36|58|W|name=Abbott, Robert S., House}} or decimal coordinates, as in {{coord|37.34826|N|79.26495|W|name=Thomas Jefferson's Poplar House}}. For region codes, use either a two character ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, or an ISO 3166-2 region code.

To get correct coordinates for a place, if you know it, you can use various satellite view systems. The Geolocator tool, at http://tools.freeside.sk/geolocator/geolocator.html which uses a referenced map from various sources, is particularly nice for providing a wikipedia-ready coordinates item, ready for cutting and pasting. As far as i can tell, though, it does not allow you to look up a street address. But you may look up a street address in [Google maps for further assistance. See Wikipedia:Obtaining geographic coordinates for tips.

WIKI - SISTERLINKS

You may use {{Sisterlinks}}, or other individual sister project templates, to link to some of wikipedia's sister project sites that might have pertinent information on the museum.

TEMPLATES, CATEGORIES

Use the best sub-category, not the top most category - be as specific as possible. Add appropriate local geographical as well as museum categories, and check for local or museum templates as well to add to the footer of the article.

Add as many other categories that fit. Some categories that are common for museums are:

[[Category:Museum in ''state'' or ''country'']]
[[Category:Historic site of country]]
a subcategory of [[Category:Ships]]
[[Category:''Y'' County]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in ''X city, Z state'']]
[[Category:1728 architecture]]
[[Category:Historic house museums]]
[[Category:Archaeological sites in ''Z'' State]]
etc. etc. etc. Try to find as many appropriate ones as possible, without any redundant parent categories.

General style guidelines[edit]

Use of wikilinks[edit]

All the WIKILINKS in the museum article need to have their blue links checked, to make sure they are linked to unique articles. Disambiguation is required for a number of articles, especially common names for the local "Post Office" and train stations or churches. Make use of piped links for an existing article with a different name from the title that is officially recognized.
Click on a red link that appears on the list. From the resulting page, "search for the article in Wikipedia" to possibly locate an existing article with a different name about the building or place. The name on the list should match the officially used name with corrected spelling, as required (Refer to: Other useful links, below). Use a piped link from the existing article name to the redlink on the list. In this way, the Palmer-Perkins House (Boundary Increase) will be linked directly to the Palmer-Perkins House article, for example.

Dos and Don'ts[edit]

Per WP:TRIVIA, do not use a "trivia", "miscellaneous" or "other facts" section.
Per WP:LIST, avoid using lists wherever possible (particularly for "notable people" or "subdivisions"); consider using tables, diagrams or prose.
Per WP:DATE and WP:CONTEXT, Dates should only be linked if they have an independent significance in the article. The same applies to dates in the footnotes. Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting.
Avoid one-sentence paragraphs wherever possible.
If wishing to promote an article to Good article status, it is recommended that it first goes through the Wikipedia peer review process first.
Avoid orphanage. Find the appropriate place in List of Museums in country and correct spelling and/or format to cause Wikilinking if necessary. Find the appropriate city, town, state, county article and add museum description and a citation to the article's points of interest section.
DO give appropriate attribution, while using your own words. Please don't cut and paste from copyrighted sources. Copyright violation material is removed via robots and other editors.
DO add the template to the talk page to include it in the museum wikiproject, as well as the regional city, country template to enlist the aid of other editors interested in articles of these wikiprojects.
DO show off your newly created article, or 5X expanded articles at Did You Know and be proud of your article.

Grammar and style checklist[edit]

Wikilinks should only be made if they are relevant to the context. Common words do not need wikilinking.
A word only needs to be wikilinked once within each section.
Links within quotations should be avoided.
Logical quotation should be used, i.e. final punctuation belongs outside the quote marks, unless the punctuation is part of the quote and the quote starts a WP sentence.^{[clarification needed]} For example – He said, "France is a country". "Paris is a city."
Dates should not be linked unless there is "reason to do so" per MOS:UNLINKDATES.
External links that are not references belong only in the External links section.
It is recommended not to specify the size of images. The sizes should be what readers have specified in their user preferences.
Text should not be sandwiched between two adjacent images. (GA criteria)
Left-aligned images should not be placed at the start of subsections.
All fair-use images need a fair use rationale. (GA criteria)
Images need succinct captions. (GA criteria)
An image caption should only end with a full-stop if it forms a complete sentence. (GA criteria)
Statements that are likely to be challenged and statistics need inline citations. (GA criteria)
Book references need the author, publishing date and page number. (GA criteria)
Book references preferably should include the publisher, city of publication and ISBN.
Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date and access date. (GA criteria)
Web references preferably should include the language (if not English) and format (if not HTML) e.g. |format=PDF
References should be consistently formatted, eg. consistent author format, abbreviations for "page number", etc.
Blogs and personal websites are not reliable sources, unless written by the subject of the article or by an expert on the subject. (GA criteria)
Dead web references should not be removed, unless replaced.
Inline citations belong immediately after punctuation marks. (GA criteria)
Portal links belong in the "See also" section. (GA criteria)
"Further info" links belong at the top of sections. (GA criteria)
Lists should only be included if they can't be made into prose or their own article. (GA criteria)
Lists within prose should be avoided. (GA criteria)
Rather than hyphens, en dashes should be used for ranges, eg. 5–10 years, and unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes should be used for punctuation, eg. The building—now disused—was built in 1820.
Page ranges in the footnotes, and sports scores should use en dashes.
" " (non-breaking space) should be typed between numbers and units, and other numerical/non-numerical components, e.g., "10 miles", "Boeing 747"
Imperial measurements should be accompanied by the metric equivalent in brackets, and vice versa. If possible, use a conversion template, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}}.
Whole numbers under 10 should be spelled out as words, except when in lists, tables or infoboxes.
Sentences should not start with a numeral. The sentence should be recast or the number should be spelled out.
Only the first word in a section heading needs a capital letter (except in proper nouns).
Short sections and paragraphs are discouraged. (GA criteria)
Ampersands should not be used (except when in a name, eg., Marks & Spencer)
"Last few years" has ambiguous meaning; "past few years" is preferable in some contexts.
"Within" has a different meaning to "in". "Within" should only be used when emphasing that something is inside something, eg. "the museum is in the city", "the museum is within the city boundaries"
Periods and spaces are needed after initials in people's names, e.g., P. G. Wodehouse
Compound adjectives need hyphens.
A hyphen shouldn't be placed after an -ly word if it is an adverb, e,g., widely used word; except if the -ly word could be mistaken for an adjective, e.g., friendly-looking man.
"Century" doesn't need a capital, e.g., "15th century" rather than "15th Century"
"While" should only be used when emphasising that two events occur at the same time, or when emphasising contrast. It shouldn't be used as an additive link.
Using "with" as an additive link leads to wordy and awkward prose, e.g. "the museum has ten directors, with one being the exhibit curator" → "the town has ten directors; one is the exhibit curator"
Beginning a sentence with "there", when "there" doesn't stand for anything, leads to wordy prose, e.g. There are ten exhibits in the museum → The museum has ten exhibits. The same applies to "it".
The words "current", "recent" & "to date" should be avoided as they become outdated. (GA criteria)
Avoid using "not" unnecessarily, eg. "songs previously not heard" → "songs previously unheard"
Avoid contractions, such as "can’t", "he's" or "they're".
Avoid abbreviations. Although abbreviations for Street (St.), Road (Rd.), Saint (St.), and two-character state abbreviations are allowable on Wikipedia, given that place names are so crucial to this project, the articles will have a more professional look if most abbreviations are avoided.
Avoid weasel words, such as "it is believed that", "is widely regarded as", "some have claimed". (GA criteria)
Avoid peacock terms, such as "beautiful", "famous", "popular", "well-known", "significant", "important" and "obvious". (GA criteria)
Avoid informal words, such as "carry out", "pub", "though", "tremendous" and "bigger".
Avoid vague words, such as "various", "many", "several", "long", "a number of", "just", "very" and "almost".
Avoid using overly formal words or wordy phrases, such as "circa", "utilise", "whilst", "upon", "commence", "the majority of", "whereas", "generate", "due to the fact that" and "prior to".
Avoid phrases with redundant words, such as "is located in", "the two are both", "they brought along", "they have plans to", "they were all part of", "the last ones to form", "both the towns", "outside of the town", "all of the towns", "received some donations", "still exists today", "it also includes others", "many different towns", "near to the town", "available records show", "to help limit the chance", "christian church", "in order to", "first began", "joined together", "future plans" and "in the year 2007".

The above is a compilation from a variety of wikipedia guideline sources on other wikiprojects (such as WP NRHP, WP NRHP SG, WP UK, WP US, and WP Arch ) adapted for use by WP Museums