Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kathy Barker


 * 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  Keep. Non-admin closure. [ Belinrahs | 'sup? | what'd I do? ] 19:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Kathy Barker

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A scientist/academic who doesn't seem to meet notability guidelines - there's a couple of textbooks which Barnes and Noble rank at 90-odd thousandth in their sales rankings, but nothing that seems to meet WP:BIO. More importantly, the article is nearly two years old and in that time there have been no attempts to reference any of it. Delete; fails WP:N and WP:V. Ros0709 (talk) 20:03, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   —John Z (talk) 00:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable author, to be judged most appropriately as the author of two textbooks for graduate students, published by the most important molecular biology laboratory of all, Cold Spring Harbor Press, At the bench : a laboratory navigator, 1998 and the later At the helm : a laboratory navigator, 2002, each of them held in essentially all university libraries according to WorldCat. B&N sales ratings are not significant--of course textbooks aimed at graduate students do not compete with novels as best sellers, or even textbooks aimed at beginning undergraduates.  The standard is not unreferenced, but unreferenceable, and there is no time limit for improving Wikipedia. Agreed, we need to add the reviews. DGG (talk) 00:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Agree with DGG. According to WorldCat her two most widely held books in libraries - At the bench: a laboratory navigator, and At the helm: a laboratory navigator – are held by 304 and 265 libraries worldwide. Also, these books seem to be widely used as textbooks, which qualifies her under WP:PROF criterion #4.--Eric Yurken (talk) 13:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Just to add to what DGG said - it does not make much sense to look at Amazon rankings for textbooks or scholarly books. Textbooks are most often sold via university bookstores, not through Amazon. The market for scholarly books is primarily university libraries, which do not often buy their books through Amazon either. Amazon rankings are okay for novels, self-help books, and other publications that are purchased directly by readers.--Eric Yurken (talk) 02:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG and Eric Yurken. A textbook that sells a few thousand copies is big, for a novel that would be minor. --Crusio (talk) 09:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.