Talk:King's Library

Untitled
Why is this being redirected to the British Museum. The whole point of this article is to not over clutter the British Museum page.

The King's Library should have its own page since there is so much to include within.

--ImperialCollegeGrad 11:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio problem
Noted that the intro sentence is a direct copy of http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/enlightenment/thekl.html and large chunks of other text are pasted in from the BM website; the section on "British Museum Enlightenment History" is pasted from http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/enlightenment/theageof.html  --mervyn 07:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I rewrote the beginning of the History section up to this sentence: It soon became apparent that there was insufficient room for the rapidly growing collection in the Montagu House. So at least this part should be cleared from possible copyright violations. Hervegirod 13:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and get round to working on this page in the next few weeks. But if anyone gets there before me, there's some more info, and a list of useful print sources here:  There's also some useful material in a recently-published book about the history of the Museum's library called 'Libraries within the library'.Jimi 66 (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm working, extremely slowly, on a new version of this article, which you can see and comment on here.Jimi 66 (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Rating and assistance?
I've gone and given this article a "c" class rating on the basis that, whilst there's a reasonable depth to the article, there are not enough sources to justify a "b". However, I may be able to help! If anyone is interested in helping to improve this article I'm going to be "in-house" at the British Museum in June as their "wikipedian in residence" (see more here. So, I will have direct access to any reference material and all the experts you might need - just give me a shout and I'll find the footnotes or experts you request. Best, Witty Lama 23:32, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

copyvio
As stated in a previous comment, the history section should be cleared of the copyright infringement. I myself rewrote all the part up to As it soon became apparent that there was insufficient room for the rapidly growing collection in the Montagu House, and I think that Jimi 66 worked on it too. The part which was infringing copyright was the Gallery construction & redevelopment chapter, which looked like it was a copy of a book or brochure. However, why not reusing the text written by Jimi 66, removing only the parts not finished yet. I think it could make a good basis for the new article. Hervegirod (talk) 22:12, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The Gallery and construction section is the part that looked like it originated from http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/history_and_the_building/kings_library.aspx, but there's also material copied from http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/prbooks/georgeiiicoll/george3kingslibrary.html immediately following the part you rewrote (i.e., "At the death of George III in 1820, the (royal) collection passed to his son George IV, Prince Regent since 1811"), which is why I blanked the entire article for a thorough review. I think Jimi66's rewrite is a good start (and I'll make a note of it at the copyright board); the question really just comes down to how much of what's in this article can be salvaged. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * arghh, so there was not much to salvage. Maybe we should just stick to use Jimi66's rewrite, and leave it like that. If there is only the part I rewrote, it's not much to salvage, and it could even not be worth the pain of integrating it in his work. Hervegirod (talk) 23:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Could be. I haven't read the article in detail (just scanned it for copyvio) or the rewrite, so I don't know what's still missing from the rewrite, but if Jimi66's work can work for an acceptable replacement article that would make the admin's job much easier when this comes up for review in a week. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've finally got some more time to work on this, and have several sources of information to work from, so will add more material over the next few days. Obviously everyone edit and contribute as you see fit!Jimi 66 (talk) 20:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

A collection of books or a physical space?
From reading fairly widely on the subject, it seems clear to me that the term 'King's Library' has always referred primarily to the collection of books rather than the gallery they were housed in at the British Museum. I've therefore removed the 'architecture' infobox and the pictures of sculptures - these sculptures were only moved into the gallery after the books were moved out. The only source I've seen so far which uses the term 'King's Library' to mean the gallery as much as the books is an old version of the British Museum website - unsurprising, as the Musuem lost the books but obviously got to keep the gallery. previous versions of this article drew too heavily on the Museum's website. It's interesting to note that the Museum has this year rewritten its webpage to focus more on the books than the gallery.

The gallery is however of much architectural interest, and merits at least a paragraph in this article, plus possibly an article of its own. That article could perhaps be called 'King's Library gallery' or 'King's Library (gallery).'Jimi 66 (talk) 21:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)