Talk:Multnomah County Library

US v. ALA and Refusal to Filter Missing
Wow. Totally missing, except in a See Also link that does not itself mention Multnomeh, is MCL's involvement in US v. ALA and the library's subsequent refusal to filter so as to obviate the need for compliance with US v. ALA, thereby giving up $104,000 per year in federal funding.

Further, when one person partly responsible for the decision to join in the suit against CIPA, then to refuse federal funding, was running for office, someone else put out a political flyer specifically pointing to this as the reason why her child was sexualized in the public library. The politician filed a SLAPP suit that he later withdraw. Eventually, he lost the election even though he was a Democrat running in 2006 when Democrats were winning like wild.

Will someone please take a stab at writing something regarding this issue. US v. ALA is a US Supreme Court case so I think that makes the whole thing notable. Some of the source material is discussed and linked in an article I wrote as republished here: http://www.safelibraries.org/valuevoters.htm Thanks. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 23:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Great minds think alike…I just noticed that absence myself earlier this morning! Weird. Not sure it would be accurate to give the library issue the weight you ascribe in the Brading/Minnis races, though: Minnis was not merely an incumbent, but the Speaker of the House, and she spent literally 7x what Brading did defending her seat (in the first race, not sure about the second.) The campaigns did not focus so very heavily on the library issue (though it was a factor.) I think you could just as easily argue that the fact Brading did as well as he did against a well-known incumbent, had to do with his work with the libraries. (I don't think either is accurate -- I don't think the library thing was a dominating issue in that race.) Anyway, I'll do some digging for coverage of this issue, and add something after a bit of research. -Pete (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a lot missing from the article. The original author only had a small paragraph, and I added mainly building info and old history. I was researching Portland City Hall, which had the PPL in it and was remodel shortly after the Central Branch, so a fair amount of library info came up. Which I added here and to the Central Branch article. The history jumps from 1913 or so to 1990, so plenty of room for expansion there. Aboutmovies (talk) 01:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Right, all. Hence why I'm suggesting others write it.  Further, the Brading/Minnis thing should not be relevant at all to this page, however, in my opinion.  But it is relevant regarding the pamphlet because it became an issue worthy of note when the candidate noted it himself by bringing a SLAPP suit against her.  That candidate helped make the relevant decisions for the library, and that SLAPP suit was to stop disclosure of information related to his opinions for the library, and he was part of the library at the basis of US v. ALA, and he lost, and together all that makes what happened quite relevant/appropriate/what have you, for an encyclopedic article.  But I do not think Minnis has anything to do with this. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 02:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

notes for expansion
MCL offered limited access to Internet as early as 1995; some concern about children and inappropriate material.

Note: my entry in "Further reading" contains a number of valuable details on the history of the MCL. It offers cites for a lot of "everybody knows" details on this institution. -- llywrch (talk) 03:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger of branch articles?
Hey, so I noticed a few weeks ago, several articles on MCL branches were created. Most of these have little to no content...they just say "this is a branch of the MCL" with a source to the branch's website on the MCL page (Since the MCL isn't a third-party source, as of yet they don't pass GNG). Since most of the "content" in those articles is already on this page, I move that all branches save Gresham and Woodstock be redirected here, and the information from those articles be displayed in a handy-dandy table that list the name, address, neighborhood, and construction date of all branches.

This merge discussion concerns the following articles:


 * Albina Library
 * Belmont Library
 * Capitol Hill Library
 * Fairview-Columbia Library
 * Gregory Heights Library
 * Hillsdale Library
 * Holgate Library
 * Hollywood Library
 * Kenton Library
 * Midland Library
 * North Portland Library
 * Northwest Library
 * Rockwood Library
 * Sellwood-Moreland Library
 * St. Johns Library
 * Troutdale

p b  p  15:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I oppose the proposed merges. Next month, MCL will host an edit-a-thon as part of Wiki Loves Libraries, one of the goals of which will be to de-stub branch articles. The Woodstock Library branch, currently awaiting Good article review, will be used as a model article for other branch libraries. Each of these articles has potential for expansion, eventually to Good article status. No need to merge given the individual articles can snowball. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I should note that I created the articles, but would oppose the merge regardless. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose merge I do not find Another Believer's argument convincing because I think that a promise to develop the articles in the future is irrelevant - all articles on Wikipedia have to meet minimum criteria at the time they are created. However, I do believe that the articles as they are right now are good enough to justify that they remain. Libraries in such a county as this are all notable and even creating these articles is a benefit to Wikipedia. These are all legitimate stubs. I would still support the creation of a table in this article giving details about each branch.   Blue Rasberry    (talk)   15:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The MCL article should contain a list or table with an overview of the branches, but that does not mean articles should not exist for each branch. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * To both Rasberry and A.B.: Please explain how the articles as currently constructed pass WP:GNG. They do not have any reliable sources; their information is just cut-and-pasted and there's more information in the table I pasted then in all the libraries' stub articles (save Central and Woodstock) put together.  Frankly, there's a case to be made for their deletion at present, but I will give A.B. and the WLL people a reasonable amount of time (until 1 November; a couple weeks after his WLL pow-wow is schedule) before I execute that option.  p  b  p  17:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Articles are not judged as to whether or not they pass the general notability guideline. The topic is judged. And unless you make a good faith effort to locate sources before nominating for deletion, then the nomination is improper (see WP:BEFORE). Given that every library article I've taken on has had amble sources available, my guess is that most of these topics would pass. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, they wouldn't, and even if they did, there's not enough content to justify a whole article for most of them. And I must remind you that BEFORE isn't mandatory  p  b  p  14:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * From WP:GNG: "If appropriate sources cannot be found after a good-faith search for them, consider merging the article's verifiable content into a broader article providing context." Have you attempted a good-faith search for additional sources? PBP, I very much appreciate your efforts and the work of others to keep our encyclopedia tidy, but in this case time is better spent improving these articles than proposing to delete them... Also, I thought this discussion was about merging... I will see if I can find some time to start collecting sources and pasting links on the article's talk pages. -- Another Believer ( Talk )

See Articles for deletion/Albina Library. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 19:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose mass merger, particularly because several of the articles have been significantly improved since the time of this merge nomination. See also: Articles for deletion/Albina Library. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Hollywood missing?
I see the Hollywood Library is missing from the table -- simple oversight? Should I add it? -Pete (talk) 19:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably an oversight. Should be added to the table. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, will do. -Pete (talk) 00:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Former branches
Noticed in this article that "The original Montavilla Library opened in 1935 and closed in 1981. The building was leased to the Oregon State University Extension Service until two years ago, when the building became vacant. The Montavilla area, which has since not had a library, is served by the Belmont, Midland and Holgate library branches, said Penelope Hummel, spokeswoman for the Multnomah County Library." Useful fact for future expansion?


 * According to the MCL photostream on Flickr, there are quite a few former branches. Some may be alternate names or replacement buildings, but the slideshow includes: Vernon, University Park, East Side, Montavilla, Lents, Brooklyn and Lombard (possibly more). Additional research needed here. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 05:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Brooklyn had one too. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Brooklyn had one too. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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Record for digital checkouts
--- Another Believer ( Talk ) 03:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/01/multnomah-county-library-saw-record-4-million-digital-checkouts-in-2020-here-are-the-most-popular-titles.html