Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of librarians

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 and cleanup – notable librarians and notable people who have been librarians kept; "notability TBD", "careers undocumented", and "no evidence yet" should go. - KrakatoaKatie 10:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of librarians

List of librarians (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Textbook example of a list that would be better served by categories. Crystallina 16:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, lists and categories serve different functions. The additional text in this article makes it different from a category list which only contains names. Corvus cornix 17:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The additional text just mentions how else the list members are notable. This, too, is better served by categories. Crystallina 20:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Yes, there is additional text, but it's absolutely useless, and shows how terrible this list is. We've got:

• The following people are noted as librarians, and possibly also in another field
• Other well-known people who have been librarians
• Notability & importance to be determined
• Not yet categorized: (careers undocumented in WP)
• No evidence yet in WP for being a librarian

Of these, 1 and 2 don't seem to have any distinction, as they just list librarians. 3 is composed of other librarians that seem "less important", but that definition is largely subjective. The last two are of people that are separated because there's no indication they were actually librarians. Seriously, the surrounding text is totally worthless, and there is no real information being conveyed here that a category could not convey (the noted librarians of congress could be in a subcategory). Remember, it's not whether the list has additional text, it's whether the list has additional information. 138.88.182.135 19:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. List of loosely associated people, having worked as a librarian isn't a notable connection here, Benjamin Franklin, Laura Bush, Lewis Carroll. Does anyone really believe those 3 are closely connected because they once had similar jobs? If this was a list of people notable for being librarians, it would be better, but it isn't. Crazysuit 00:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete'per 138.88.182.135. Pavel Vozenilek 03:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and divide. That preliminary division was done by me when I was new here, as an attempt to sort the list into some semblance of order and try to find information on the missing people. There's a full discussion of this on the article talk page--I refer to it instead of explaining here further. I never had a chance to finish working on it, because I instead found my energies diverted into rescuing articles on individual notable people that had been nominated for deletion. The part on notable librarians should now possibly be split off into a separate article. The list of notable people who have been librarians is in this case defensible because of the rather large number of such people having had prominent careers otherwise--it's served as a way-station. There are not many other professions that have done that-- it can be turned into a real article and not just a mere list. If deleted, I will try to reconstitute the parts that can best be reconstituted. Getting someone involved again in working on this topic is an practical use of AfD, but tagging the article or asking on the talk page can do that also.

I note that I & the other people working a good deal on it were not informed about the deletion. Sure it's on my watchlist--but so are about a thousand other articles that I've worked on or commented on or are trying to track after nominating for deletion or possible rescue in one way or another. This unconcern for individual editors was one of the things that got me rather annoyed when I saw it on WP when I came, as it applied to others. I can cope with it myself as I can with all unpoliteness here--I have personally gotten thoroughly used to the lack of conventional manners on WP-- but it still strikes me as unfair as a way of working on a serious project.

More important, nobody notified the WikiProject. I will do so now, tho a little on the late side. DGG (talk) 03:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for not notifying anyone; I figured since the list had several authors and had an untouched cleanup/restructuring tag since November 2006, that it was abandoned. Crystallina 04:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - I'm with DGG on this one; it is a potentialy useful springboard for several articles that it can also serve as a 'hub' for. --Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 09:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep the lists of those known as librarians and other famous people who worked as librarians; remove the doubtful ones until someone can give a reason for including them. I admit that as it stands, these two lists could be replaced with categories, so to maintain its advantage as a list, we need to add something about their contributions to the field, as in List of historians, List of geometers and List of explorers. (If you must delete, PLEASE give us time to assign them to categories first.) GUllman 23:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Or drastically trim. One category was not mentioned:

• People not interested in librarians... Tiptopper 01:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• Move to List of notable librarians. Create a category as well. Wikipedia needs more indexing, more navigation aids, not less. Remove entires that are not verified librarians. --SmokeyJoe 09:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
• Move per SmokeyJoe, and trim.--Aldux 13:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. This can be done my a category. No additional information, other the one found in the librarians articles, is necessary. -- Magioladitis 16:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. This would be better served as a category. Karanacs 18:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but move to List of notable librarians per SmokeyJoe, DGG et al. Seems like a worthwhile list. Bearian'sBooties 19:51, 2 November 2007 (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.