Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Friendship book (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Withdrawn per WP:HEY. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 21:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Friendship book
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Not notable, no sourcing found, absolutely zero changes since 2006. Reads like a how-to. A cursory search found only personal websites instructing how to make one, or unrelated topics with "Friendship book" in the name. Previously kept in 2007 although the arguments were all WP:GOOGLEHITS and WP:ITSNOTABLE. If no improvements have been made in 12 years, then it's clear that this just isn't a noteworthy topic. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Redirect to autograph book, which this sounds like. Bearian (talk) 18:30, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ad Orientem (talk) 03:27, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.      <li></li> </ol>

<ol> <li> This article is reprinted from Taylor & Francis's Popular Music and Society journal in https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03007766.2014.975032. The book notes on page 117: "If much contemporary research on fan culture is focused on fandom online, there is plenty of activity outside the Internet, and there was much before the Internet era. Anja Löbert's discussion of 'friendship books' (or 'fbs' as they were known) shows how female fans of Take That formed a thiriving social network in the 1990s, a time well before Facebook and other digital platforms made such cultures so public. The 'fbs' prove that such fans were active, creative, and sociable, not isolated celebrity followers." The book notes on page 185: "Two communicative subsystems receive particular attention. First, I introduce a pre-digital networking tool employed by the scene: 'friendship books' or FBs. These were little stapled booklets inside which the originator would write her name, address, age, likes, and bartering interests, before passing them on to a penfriend who would do the same, and so on, until the booklet was full, by which time it had usually travelled around the globe." The book notes on page 194: "Regular friendship books had a variety of variations, such as slams, crams, and decos. Slams were FBs that included various questions designed to get to know potential penfriends. Questions could include 'What's your life motto?' and 'What is your favorite book?' or 'When was the last time you snogged?' Crams were like friendship books without any personal information. The idea—as the name applies—was to cram as many names and addresses as possible into the space provided. Due to the lack of available space, crams were not usually decorated or prettified in any way. Decos usually had a theme, such as, for example, cats, water, fire, or Asia. The main difference between decos and FBs was that decos involved more craft, while FBs were more focused on introducing onself and one's trade/swap interests. When signing into decos, materials such as decorative papers, pearls, grommets, feathers, fabrics, and other embellishments were used. In contrast to FBs, little information was given about the person; at most name, address, and age. Sometimes only tags like 'Tina from Zürich' were included, indicating that decos were no mere means to meet new..." Further information from the book: "The majority of fans used three pathways: ads in teen magazines, FBs, and personal encounters at concerts and other places. The FBs are of particular interest here, because they were the scene’s very own innovation and allowed the fan community nearly complete independence from commercial platforms such as the teen magazine. They were DIY products, made out of small, often elaborately decorated strips of paper, stapled together to make pages in a little booklet. On the first page, the originator of the FB would write her name, address, age, favorite member of Take That, likes and dislikes, favorite bands, and bartering interests. It was then sent on to a series of penpals. Each new recipient would respectively fill in a page with her name and address, age and other details that she added. Once an FB was received (or, as was more common, a stack of them), one could browse for a suitable potential penfriend, write to that peer, and, with any luck, embark on a pen/bartering friendship with that person. ... The FBs served at least four purposes (see Figure 4). First, they were a forum to meet new penpals—a pre-digital networking tool, as it were. Second, FBs advertised what the individual fans wanted to barter or, as it was called within the scene, to “swap.” As swapping and bartering were such an important part of the scene, members used their space on the FB page to indicate what they were after and what they could offer in return. This way, a fan could quickly assess whether someone would be a suitable penfriend or not. Third, FBs were a way of discovering new interests; entrants specified a list of which bands they liked aside from Take That. This practice was similar to what we now find on Last.fm, Amazon and other online shops when they suggest, “Others who bought this item were also interested in.” Frequently, for instance, Take That fans would put various Britpop or Indie bands among their likes, inspiring others to listen to this music as well. At the very least, however, such declarations of taste provided a sort of “scene barometer” answering questions such as “What’s going on in my scene?/What are my peers into?” Finally, FBs promoted selfexpression and creativity. While some FB authors would not use anything but a black or blue pen to make their entry, others would turn their small space on paper into a little piece of art. Advocates of the latter would have a whole range of FB-making equipment from the arts and crafts shop: felt pens, blow pens, gel pens, glitter, varnish, tape, clear seal, and glue. Clippings, stickers, and interesting materials and patterns that they collected from magazines and so forth were used. Some of these FB artists were not even looking for new penfriends any longer (indicated by the acronym SNNP, meaning “Sorry no new pals”), making the motive for their entry pleasure in the creative process. “It was such a creative way to get to know more people, or leave your mark. It’s like graffiti, you leave your signature, your piece of art on a wall for everyone to see, only that it isn’t ‘everyone,’ per say, it’s like a message in a bottle, traveling the world” (Oshra P., Israel)."</li> <li> The book notes: "Within my research I found that some zine writers encouraged further grrrl networking by posting out 'friendship books' or 'slam books' with their zines. These 'books' are handmade by stapling several squares of paper together. The front page includes the name and address of the girl who produced the 'book' and the contact details of a friend of hers. Recipients of these books are requested to fill in their name, address and details of their likes and dislikes. When the friendship book becomes full it is sent to the girl whose name appears on the front page. This request for personal interaction is in keeping with the content of the zines."</li> <li> The book notes on page 132: "It will then be demonstrated that on a functional level SNS bear some striking similarities to the poetry album and its more recent equivalent, the friendship book." The book notes on page 138: "In terms of data, the present study draws on a small corpus of texts, consisting of twenty-five poetry albums, twelve friendship books and 100 SNS profiles." The book notes on page 140: "Shifting the focus to a more recent form of poetry albums, the so-called 'friendship book', we find some dramatic changes on a representational level. As illustrated by Figure 8.3c, friendship books contain theme question templates very similar to SNS profiles, asking for personal details, such as favourite animal, favourite books and songs, hobbies, career wish etc. Just as in SNS, profiles inscribers are prompted to attach a photograph in an ID photo format. On the other hand, friendship books typically provide templates such as “my verse for you” or “as a friendship souvenir”, prompting the author to deliver inscriptions in the style of traditional poetry albums. As my data demonstrates, only a few inscribers reverted to their intertextual knowledge and attached poetry album-like verses. More commonly, inscribers expressed a general wish or a self-made verse in the respective text templates (Figure 8.3d) ... To this day, it is still a common practice for German schoolchildren to exchange poetry albums and friendship books, especially among the younger children (ages seven to fourteen)." The book notes on page 148: "Contrasting poetry albums, friendship books and SNS, we obtain the following results: the textual structure of poetry album inscriptions builds on conventionalised textual patterns that can be traced back to the mid-sixteenth century. In contrast, in friendship book entries and SNS profiles, the medium, with its pre-ordained templates, determines both the structure and the content of the individual inscriptions. From a macro-point of view, something that all text types have in common is their regress on fixed and formulaic cultural units. Poetry album verses resort to pattern books, for which we find evidence as early as in the sixteenth century, as well as to the author’s intertextual knowledge about album verses. The choice of a particular verse is constitutive for writing an entry in someone’s poetry album. The individuality and/or the self-representation of the author arises from the choice and a possible modification of an established album verse (see Linke 2007). Further, the pictorial elements of an inscription appear to offer various means for an indirect presentation of the author: notions about the pictorial parts of an inscription seem to be less strict, ranging from attached stickers and postcards to silhouettes and handmade drawings. In contrast, friendship book entries and SNS profiles are utilised to present the authors in a much more direct manner. In doing so, both texts draw on media discourse-related entities to deploy them for the individual positioning of the author, thus functioning, as Liu (2007) has shown, as expressive arenas for taste performance.13 Related to this, we can contrast the template 'This is my favourite book' of a friendship book with a “visual bookshelf” taken from a Facebook profile. The friendship book’s template provides information about the inscriber’s favourite book. It is elicited by the statement “das ist mein Lieblingsbuch” (This is my favourite book) and constrained by the size of the supplied frame. In contrast to this, Facebook’s 'visual bookshelf' gives much more detailed information: about books the owner is currently reading, books she has already read and those she plans to read in future. By virtue of its hypertextual nature, Facebook’s ‘visual bookshelf’ comprises not only explicit statements about the author’s literature preferences but also hyperlinks from the displayed titles to discussion boards where one may comment on the individual books or click on a further hyperlink to purchase the specifi c title via the e-commerce platform “Amazon”." The book notes on page 149: "The poetry album and the friendship book may be seen as predecessor texts of SNS. All of these texts correspond in articulating a social network. In addition to this, they all offer a means for textual self-representation: while in poetry albums personal details of inscribers may arise only in a more implicit way; friendship books and SNS profiles make personal information explicit."</li> <li> The book notes: "Friendship books and ‘Slam’ books are small hand-made booklets comprised of several squares of paper stapled together. Each ‘book’ contains a list of names and addresses and a brieft outline of the respective entrant’s likes/ interests. When full, the book is posted to the addressee on the front page."</li> <li> The book notes on page 34: "By the end of the century, notions of sentimental or romantic friendship as sites for literate, expressive subjectivities can be observed in the exchanging of libri amicorum or friendship books among educated classes. These books were creative and material expressions of the connection between two or more friends, sharing a lineage with common-place books and autograph books that reflected university friendships among men. Evoking pre-mature memorialization, they stored the concrete emblems of lived relationships, including drawings, letters, locks of hair, fabric, and copied quotations from favorite authors. Such practices invite us to consider how notions of friendship are re-shaped, at least within privileged literate circles, by the omnipresence of print media and literary articulations of friendship." The book notes on page 226: "While friendship books appear to evolve out of the practice of autograph books, traceable back to sixteenth-century Germany, they also reflect eighteenth-century perceptions of interpersonal relationships in the 'age of sensibility,' and often work to document reading experiences. For two instances of eighteenth-century friendship books, see 'Libri Amicorum: Friendship and Autographs.' Anne Wagner. Untitled Manuscript. New York Public Library Digital Gallery. Web. 29 March 2013; and 'The Unique Friendship Book of Rev. James Stanier Clark (1765–1834).' James Stanier Clark. Untitled Manuscript. Art Works Gallery. Web. 29 March 2013. http://www.artworksgallery.co.uk"</li> <li> The article notes: "The British Library's little known collection of alba amicorum, or friendship books, is to be brought out of storage to highlight how the youth of 400 years ago created their own social media. Alba amicorum originated in Germany in the late 1500s. Young aristocrats or students would travel across Europe filling their albums with portraits, messages from people they befriended and even drinking rituals and rude pictures. Roly Keating, the library's chief executive, said that the alba amicorum were a huge trend that took off as people 'began to travel and make connections and, rather like today, they didn't want those friendships to be totally secret things'. He said he had been unaware of the library's holdings of about 500 of the friendship books, many of which it is putting on display in February. Alexandra Ault, a curator in manuscripts, said that the museum had examples of books being used to collect autographs, including those of the poet John Milton and the explorer Francis Drake."</li> </ol>

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow friendship book to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 09:17, 24 November 2019 (UTC)</li></ul>


 * Pinging Articles for deletion/Friendship book participants:, , , , , , , , and . Cunard (talk) 09:17, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. an abundance of sources, recent and historical. Saying platitudes to ones friends did not originate with Facebook.   DGG ( talk ) 09:53, 24 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep per the discussion that followed my initial reaction. Bearian (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.