Talk:library

I have completely rewritten the definitions.

Essentially a library can mean one of two things:

1. an institution which holds books and such for use by members, but is not defined by its premises, in the same way that a university or church can continue to exist regadless of its premises
2. a collection. with no members and no services.

The original description was in some ways too restrictive (it would exclude a mobile library housed in a van), and in others too inclusive (it would include a mere book repository). Pol098 03:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

What about repositories of books within an institution?

Pol098's definition of a library doesn't appear to cover small libraries devoted to storing books (a repository of books) within an institution. This would not necessarily be an independent institution; often it might be a resource within an institution. For instance, a parliament might have a "parliamentary library". Similarly, a school library doesn't fit the definition very well since it might occupy only a single room within a school and could hardly be characterised as an "independent institution". The closest that the entry for "library" comes to this sense appears to be 5. A room dedicated to storing books, but this also seems inappropriate.

This problem was brought home to me when I looked at the Japanese translations, which lacked the term 図書室 ('library room'). 図書室 are common in Japan but would never be called 図書館 ('library building'), which tends to refer to a stand-alone institution. I am sure that the English term 'library' can also be applied to this kind of small library that exists within a larger institution.

Bathrobe (talk) 00:47, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: April–May 2017

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library

Is this a universal terms used in all CCGs? ばかFumiko￥^talk 03:38, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

cited Kiwima (talk) 23:09, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Of the four citations currently in the entry, two (the two from 2010) are mentions, so we still need one more citation to keep the entry. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:13, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

To quote from the Criteria for inclusion: "This filters out appearance in raw word lists, commentary on the form of a word, such as “The word ‘foo’ has three letters,” lone definitions, and made-up examples of how a word might be used. For example, an appearance in someone’s online dictionary is suggestive, but it does not show the word actually used to convey meaning. On the other hand, a sentence like “They raised the jib (a small sail forward of the mainsail) in order to get the most out of the light wind,” appearing in an account of a sailboat race, would be fine." By this statement, I would consider those mentions as supportive of the use. However, if it makes you happy, I have added another quote that is not at all mention-y. Kiwima (talk) 01:54, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

The new quote looks good to me, thanks. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:54, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• RFV passed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:47, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Usage note: /

The awkwardness of two rs in the same unstressed syllable makes people tend to drop the first of them. In AmE the second syllable has a strong vowel, so the reduction is more noticeable, and therefore less frequent because it is more strongly disapproved of. JMGN (talk) 11:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)