Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books
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You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 25 § Cults, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:23, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Lists of encyclopedias by language
[edit]Hi everyone,
I've been (re)writing some article lists of encyclopedias by language. These are essentially spin-offs from main article List of encyclopedias by language. I found it to be helpful to make some overview of the native titles, English titles, dates of publication, and format (printed, digital, or both), and put them into sortable Wikitables.
Also, I'm seeking to resolve the classic confusion that occurs in ambigious article titles and catnames such as List of German encyclopedias or Category:German encyclopedias: what does the adjective German mean? I've made an effort to clarify that these lists, and the categories they are based on, are defined by the language the works were written in, not the country in which they were published, nor the country the contents may be focused on.
The result so far is:
- List of encyclopedias in Dutch (rewritten)
- List of encyclopedias in French (newly written, based on Category:French-language encyclopedias)
- List of encyclopedias in German (newly written, based on Category:German-language encyclopedias)
- List of encyclopedias in Hungarian (only renamed from List of Hungarian encyclopedias)
- List of encyclopedias in Ukrainian (rewritten and renamed)
The point I'm struggling most with is how to present the different formats. I've tentatively divided them into a coloured legend at the top with "printed (paper), digital (online), both*", with a pretty long explanatory note to go with that. (Incidentally, this is based on established practice in "lists of wars involving country x", where ambiguous outcomes require some nuance in explaining, especially when it is debatable.) Because to be frank, the semantics of that tripartite classification are much more complicated that I thought. What do we mean by 'digital'?
- Fulltext photocopies of printed editions? E.g. La Grande Encyclopédie. As the text says: A scan of the full text is available at Gallica: [1]. The article title ranges are given in the volume titles; there is no direct way to go to a particular article. I don't think that is very 'digital' or 'online; this is a far cry from a fully interactive online encyclopedia like Wikipedia.
- Fulltext OCR photocopies of printed editions? This is the above, but with Ctrl+F searchable contents, however still not entry-specific.
- Completely digitised text versions of printed editions that have been made available in offline formats such as CD-ROM, DVD, USB sticks etc.? E.g. Microsoft Encarta. This is a digital entry-specific searchable database, but not online.
- Online entry-specific searchable databases? E.g. Wikipedia. The opposite of the photocopies of printed editions that are flung online without being interactive and searchable by entry, etc.
- Other.... (e.g. we may make distinctions between open-access free encyclopedias and those behind paywalls, usergenerated ones (Wikipedia) and professional ones (Britannica) etc.).
I've thrown these all together under the term "Both*", but is this even helpful for our readers? Should we split it out? If so, how? I'd love to hear your feedback! NLeeuw (talk) 13:21, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- PS: update:
- List of encyclopedias in Latin (newly written, based on Category:Encyclopedias in Latin)
- List of encyclopedias in Arabic (only renamed from List of Arabic encyclopedias)
- List of encyclopedias in Chinese (only renamed from List of Chinese encyclopedias)
- List of 20th-century general encyclopedias in English (only renamed from List of English-language 20th-century general encyclopedias)
- NLeeuw (talk) 01:23, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Nederlandse Leeuw Thank you for your efforts, these pages are major improvements! I'm not sure myself. Do any sources that talk about digital encyclopedias have any clarification? In lieu of that, I would count ones that have in some way been developed for the internet (like the The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, even if the content was transferred over from an initial physical edition. I would not count say, scans. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:30, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response. I think we agree on the basic principle that carrying over contents from an initial physical (paper-printed) edition to a digital version that is more than just a photocopy scans (with or without OCR) counts as a "digital" encyclopedia. In my view, that means that, say, the Natural History (Pliny) counts as "Both*": even though it does not have an entry-specific database, and is no longer regularly updated, it is easily searchable online and maintained in multiple formats, e.g.
- This is not just a bunch of photocopy scans with the added OCR courtesy; this is fully digitised, free and open-access. NLeeuw (talk) 01:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!
[edit] Hello, |
Format of Booker Prize results tables
[edit]There is a discussion at Talk:2024_Booker_Prize#New_table_layout about a proposed (and implemented, for 2024) change to the layout of these tables. Comments would be welcome. PamD 00:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)