Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books
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Requested move at Talk:Algiers Motel killings#Requested move 17 February 2025
[edit]
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Algiers Motel killings#Requested move 17 February 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:41, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
RfC on book review aggregators
[edit]A discussion is taking place that members of this project should be interested in:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Novels § RfC on book review aggregators
Any input would be appreciated. Οἶδα (talk) 09:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Release date and copyright date
[edit]Are we always supposed to treat the in-print copyright date as the actual release date? Copyright is not equivalent to the release - it can be copyrighted and then not released for some time, or the copyright date may be past when it was published. Even if it says a "printed" date, that may not be the release date either.
@Skyerise and I had something of a dispute on this and we both agreed this should be brought to wider discussion. Now, I see their point on the citation issue which initially brought up the question, so that's no longer in dispute, but the discussion raised another question about what the article on the book itself should say as the release date. I think that the body of the article on the book in question Black Sun (Goodrick-Clarke book) should say it released in August 2001. The publisher's website says it released in hardcover and e-book copies in August 2001, the LCC printed in the first edition has 2001 in the number (though the 2001 LCC does not exist in any form, but that has happened to me a few times). There are multiple reviews from 2001, not 2002. The copyright in all copies of the book is 2002.
Any thoughts? I have run into this problem a few times before, though I forgot on what article. It was something like the in-book copyright date was 2005 while the publication date on all other platforms was 2004. When something is released later in the year it is not unknown for the creator to push the copyright date up to the next year, which was allowed even when properly formatted copyright was required for a copyright to be claimed at all. Therefore I do not think it is a foolproof metric when there is other information that disputes it - any ideas on what a better metric for figuring out the release date is, and what should be done here or in other cases? PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- When in doubt, ask what reliable, secondary sources do. Reviews from reliable sources will generally list the book's release year. The year is generally good enough unless there is a reliable source for the release month/date, in which case it should be sourced in the book article's text itself. If we have to fall back to a copyright date, I'd wager that we don't have enough sources to write an article on the book. czar 03:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- Can any book review be deemed secondary for the publication date when they just regurgitate the print publication page? If you're just repeating it doesn't make the information any more secondary. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- I believe that publishers directly tell reviewers when the release is planned, so the review can publish shortly before. I think some Advance Reader Copies print release information inside too. So it’s not always just looking at the copyright page, though I don’t know that we can tell after the fact where a reviewer got their info. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- Can any book review be deemed secondary for the publication date when they just regurgitate the print publication page? If you're just repeating it doesn't make the information any more secondary. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Manuscript/book distinction and italics
[edit]I wanted to open up a discussion I had with Srnec about italicizing works such as Olomouc Law Book. Srnec asserts that this is a manuscript and the title does not get italicized. However, I was taught that the titles of standalone works (not chapters or parts) should always be italicized. In my own search, I could not find a standard for the distinction between the treatment of titles for manuscripts and books, and Srnec did not provide me with one when asked. Wikipedia article titles on various works from the period are not standardized either, and MOS:ITALICTITLE only distinguishes against italicizing "pre-modern religious texts or scriptures".
My gut tells me works like this should be italicized, but I would be happy to learn something. Regardless, a standard should be put into place to reduce inconsistencies. Mbdfar (talk) 12:16, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish: I actually just read through a write-up you did in 2015 at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Titles_of_works/Archive_2#Fairy_tales,_myths,_folktales that I wish I found before. It does address and clarify my issue. Is there somewhere I can read more about this rule, or is it just one of those unwritten conventions? As it is not intuitive, is there any way to integrate this information into Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles_of_works? Mbdfar (talk) 12:26, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- I looked for some style guides for writers on medieval topics: [1] [2] [3]. It looks like manuscripts, as in the singular physical objects (like Ellesmere Chaucer) are not italicized and are cited with their shelf mark, whereas the texts found within manuscripts (like Canterbury Tales) are italicized like any published book. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- For clarity, that would mean that Olomouc Law Book is correctly non-italicized, because the article appears to be about the single object (known by a library shelfmark) rather than the contents it published. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for those guidelines. Srnec did mention that distinction during our discussion, but I have trouble understanding the nuance of it. If the article discussed more about the contents of the book, would it be appropriate to italicize it? More broadly, in what instance would you italicize the article title of a single work that has never been copied? I'm unsure how to decouple the physical entity itself from the contents within. Mbdfar (talk) 14:10, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Take a look at Exeter Book and The Wanderer, a poem only ever found in the Exeter Book. If you’re writing about a single object which can only ever be in one place, that’s a manuscript: no italics. If you’re writing about a series of words which could be republished in a modern edition, that’s a text: italics. (Or for short poems like "The Ruin", quotes.) Usually one does wish to discuss the text contained by a manuscript but that doesn’t make the object itself stop being an object. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:23, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Also compare Pearl Manuscript and Pearl (poem). The existence of a shelfmark (like MS Cotton Nero A X/2) is diagnostic of a manuscript, which can only be on one shelf at a time. Whereas modern editions/translations are diagnostic of a text, which can be copied. On that front it might be helpful to recognize that modern editions/translations are also “copies” of a text. Virtually all wiki-notable texts will have copies in that sense, and it is by being copied in a modern edition that many of these texts acquire their names. So the other diagnostic criteria is “what does my source say?” ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- That is very helpful, I really appreciate you taking the time to break this all down for me. There are a thousand what-if rabbit holes that I want to go down about how to refer to digitized copies of works from this period and photograph-only books, but I'll stop it here. I absolutely agree with abiding by how the title is presented by the sources. Thank you again. Mbdfar (talk) 14:57, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Happy to help! I love this rabbit hole, and it’s one that many scholars have gone down (myself included) over the ages. (Digitizations and photocopies are generally referred to as facsimiles of the manuscript and not as editions of its text, though in my experience people get sloppy about that distinction for later printed works…) This scholarly field is known as book history and you might find some interesting entry points in the SHARP blog. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 15:12, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Actually I’ll add a specific rec for Bitstreams by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum! A fun and readable bit of book history about digital books. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 15:16, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- That is very helpful, I really appreciate you taking the time to break this all down for me. There are a thousand what-if rabbit holes that I want to go down about how to refer to digitized copies of works from this period and photograph-only books, but I'll stop it here. I absolutely agree with abiding by how the title is presented by the sources. Thank you again. Mbdfar (talk) 14:57, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- I looked for some style guides for writers on medieval topics: [1] [2] [3]. It looks like manuscripts, as in the singular physical objects (like Ellesmere Chaucer) are not italicized and are cited with their shelf mark, whereas the texts found within manuscripts (like Canterbury Tales) are italicized like any published book. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2025 (UTC)