Template talk:Gutenberg

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This is a template to generate links to the Project Gutenberg. This template should be used exclusively for BOOKS.

To link to AUTHOR listings in Project Gutenberg, use template:Gutenberg author.

Contents

[edit] Process

  1. Go to the Project Gutenberg web site.
  2. Look up the page that has the book you want to link via the template.
  3. Get the EText-No. and the Book name.
  4. Edit the wikipedia page and add in the Gutenberg template, setting the 'no' variable equal to the EText-No. and the 'name' equal to the book name.

[edit] Examples of correct usage

{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems}}
{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems ''by Geoffrey Chaucer'}}

[edit] Talk

Additional discussion should be appended here.

[edit] line break?

I don't know much about templates, however Around the World in Eighty Days had the following line:

{ {gutenberg|no=3456|name=Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours}} (French)

Whish translates as:

Should there be a line break at the end of the template? Paul Weaver 07:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Not sure I follow. Why are you expecting there to be a line break? The way it renders seems perfectly fine to me. AdamDiCarlo 04:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I would argue against trying to put a line break after the template because for some instances (one example is shown above) it is helpful to add a little more information explaning some details of the text.

Andrew Sly 22:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The template has been fixed, it did have a line break 132.185.240.121 13:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
(That's Paul Weaver by the way, I forgot to log in. It originally looked like at Project Gutenberg(line break)(French)) 132.185.144.120 14:19, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The example at the beginning of this section appends additional information to show the language of the text in question. In case it's of interest to people using this template, I've found Language icons are a good way to indicate this. For the example above, it would simply be {{fr icon}}

Andrew Sly 23:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] title/author syntax seems awkward

Am I the only one who finds {{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems ''by Geoffrey Chaucer'}} rather awkward? Is this a misfeature of the template? If so, and if anyone is working on the template, I would suggest syntax like: {{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems|author=Geoffrey Chaucer}}. In case of multiple authors, comma separated or else mulitple 'author=' attributes accepted? — AdamDiCarlo 21:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I would say that you should not try to include too much extra material within the template. The ideal content for "name=" should be just the title of the book. Anything else that might add further understanding could be added after the template as discussed above. In the example given, the only places where I could imagine the template being used is in an article where Geoffrey Chaucer has already been mentioned as the author, so further mention of him in the external link would seem to be redundant.
I'm not proposing we put more material in the template, I'm just saying that the recommendation for how to mark up this case is awkward. I guess I read your answer as saying, "we don't want to encourage use of author in the template by additing an optional attribute, but we have thate example just so people can deal with the (very rare) cases when the need to include the author in the Gutenberg citation." Which is a fine answer, tho I should add a caveat to the example itself, if so. — AdamDiCarlo 19:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I second AdamDiCarlo's request. And as for complication, we don't seem to have a problem making any of the citation templates esoteric. jareha (comments) 05:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I too felt the urge to include an author, primarily for when the author has a wiki page that can be linked. I stuck in an optional "author" parameter to do that. An example can be seen in George Bass#References. That's the only place I've used it for now, so if this unleashes a storm of controversy that's the only place to revert :-) -- Kevin Ryde 01:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] citing title which is also wiki article

Is there any advice for citing a title in gutenberg which is also a wikipedia article? Or is the answer "don't do that, leave the etext link in to wikipedia article"? — AdamDiCarlo 04:23, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Again, I think this is a case where, if the article is well-written, this will simply not be an issue. The gutenberg template should be used where it links to an item which is clearly closely related to the subject of a wikipedia article. This will often be an article about a certain book, in which case any meaningful links should have already been made in the article. Do you have any examples I could take a look at? Andrew Sly 22:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
The article in question was William_Harrison_Ainsworth. Previous to my edit, all of the book titles were wikilinks (to non-existant articles). I decided to un-link'ify them. I think you're saying: if an author article contains a link to the book article (e.g., the book is significant enough to warrant it), the gutenberg reference should be in the book article and not the author article anyway? Which is a sensible answer, I guess, in the name of reducing redundancy. AdamDiCarlo 19:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


Perhaps it helps to put it in perspective by saying that both the Project Gutenberg catalog and wikipedia are works in progress. Both have their own quirks and attempts to get them to work together will always have weak points.
Personally, my opinion is that the best place to use a gutenberg template is in an external links section, not in a list of book names. I also try to make any external links relate as directly as possible to the main topic of the article, rather than to something related at a tangent. So, I generally use a template:gutenberg author in an article about an author, and a template:gutenberg in an article about a book, or an article where the gutenberg text is about the same subject as the article and is relevant. Andrew Sly 22:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use with bibliographies

I removed the "of", for use in cases where the title was already mentioned (all Gutenberg titles are also available in printed form; the links will typically appear in bibliographies where title, author, year, ISBN etc. were just mentioned. dab (ᛏ) 17:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New wording for template

Currently the template looks like this:

Free eBook Pinocchio at Project Gutenberg

I'd like to suggest a change to look like this:

Pinocchio a free e-book at Project Gutenberg

Or another alternative:

Pinocchio a free e-book at Project Gutenberg

It is common practice in external link sections to highlite the title of the book, with other descriptive information afterwards. It looks cleaner, is easier to read, and is more standard. Highlite the title only is standard practice not only on Wikipedia but everywhere in citations. The fact that it is "free" and an "e-book" and "Project Gutenberg" is just descriptive information that should not be part of the title. For example see the external links section of David Copperfield (novel), the Gutenberg doesn't fit in with the others. There are many other examples like this where this template doesn't fit in with other standard formating. Note the above wording is just a suggestion, but the key is to have only the title of the book as the external link, and have the title come first. I assume the mention of a "free e-book" is there for newbies, so wikilinking e-book would be in line with helping newbies as well. -- Stbalbach 15:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It now seems to read:
"Pinocchio available for free via Project Gutenberg" --Blainster 23:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd much prefer it read something like Full text of Pinocchio, available from Project Gutenberg". Somehow I find myself unhappy with the word 'free'. --Tagishsimon (talk)

I don't care for the word "free" either (as if other links are not free? It's also redudant with "available"). But I do think it is important that the first word in the sentence be the title of the work. -- Stbalbach 00:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
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