User talk:Leahrudolph

Welcome
Welcome! I'm glad you've joined us as a contributor. I see you're a librarian, and we certainly do need more librarians here--I'm always glad to welcome another colleague. (you may want to see my suer page for some information about who I am, and also take a look at the project WP:WikiProject Librarians. You can join the project by just adding your name.)

As you know, there are many misconceptions about Wikipedia. One of them is that it's a web directory of all local institutions. But it isn't, or at least it's not the intention.--see our general explanation at WP:NOT about what we do and do not include. A Wikipedia article needs to show notability with references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. In general, small town libraries do not meet this--the references from the local press are generally not considered to be substantial information. A few do, if there is sufficient sourcing. The nearest thing here is the awards listed, but i think they would probably not considered sufficient to show notability, unless they were referenced in more than local papers---our guideline for this is WP:LOCAL But we also limit ourselves to encyclopedic information--which can loosely be defined as material of general interest to the public, not just to prospective patrons--material which should be in an encyclopedia, not a library directory or a library website.

Even more important, it must be original writing. It can't be copied from a web site, or previous publication, and the general tone of he article indicates that it might well have been written in that manner. First it's a copyright violation, but, even if you own the copyright and are willing to give us permission according to WP:DCM, the tone will not be encyclopedic and the material will not be suitable--just as is the case here.

As a general rule, a suitable page will be best written by someone without Conflict of Interest; it's not impossible to do it properly with a conflict of interest or as a paid press agent, but it's relatively more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of what the subject wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know.

Now, I could have deleted the article, as one of the administrators here who review new articles, because it does not meet several basic criteria. But I haven't done so, because I think you can do something with it that would be very useful. County library systems are generally considered notable here, and suitable for an article. We have many of them. The Lackawanna County Library System does not at present have an article, and it ought to have one.

What I've done instead is moved the article to your user space, as User:Leahrudolph/Abington Community Library. I suggest you now start an article on the community system, with sections for each of the libraries--you don't need to write them out in full to start with--it will be enough to provide a general description and history, do the section on Arlington, and make section headers for the others. When you write the article, I have  3 key points of advice:

1/ do not copy from a web site or previous publication; rewrite the information from scratch

2/ put in a reference to a published source at the very first edit.

3/be very selective about the material you include--don't give such details as opening hours and current periodical titles--the library website is the place for this. 4/for a guide to proper formatting, see WP:FIRST ad the references there. Never refer to "our" patrons or anything else in the first person. If I can help you further, let me know on my user talk page. I tend to be a little busy, but I'll answer in a day or two. Ask me there, not here, to make sure I see it.  DGG ( talk ) 08:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)