Wikidata:Property proposal/personal library at

personal library at

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Person

   Done: personal library at (P9419) (Talk and documentation)

Description	institution holding the subject’s personal library
Data type	Item
Domain	human (Q5)
Allowed values	organization (Q43229)
Example 1	David Foster Wallace (Q313246) "personal library at" Harry Ransom Center (Q5671855)
Example 2	Susan Sontag (Q152824) "personal library at" University of Southern California Libraries (Q7896339)
Example 3	Julio Cortázar (Q174210) "personal library at" Fundación Juan March (Q29043218)
Example 4	William S. Burroughs (Q188176) "personal library at" Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (Q72941560)
Example 5	Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Q82409) "personal library at" British Library (Q23308)
Example 6	Virginia Woolf (Q40909) "personal library at" Washington State University Libraries (Q27991313)
Planned use	Will add property to items for human (Q5) for which our repository holds a portion of the personal library
Expected completeness	always incomplete (Q21873886)
See also	archives at (P485), has works in the collection (P6379)
Wikidata project	WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/Harry Ransom Center (Q105936481)

Motivation

The Wikidata property archives at (P485) allows to link individuals with the institution holding their archival collections, but no such a property exist yet to establish this link with the institution holding all or part of an individual’s personal library. Nevertheless, many Higher Education and Research Libraries Special Collections count with personal libraries of historical figures and notable individuals within their holdings. These collections of books and other printed media owned by a person in a specific moment in time, often with clear evidence of ownership and use, have a rich cultural significance and high research potential. They provide a glimpse of the subject’s intellectual life, literary influences, and reading habits. In certain cases, they also shed light over book collecting patterns as well as Book and Reading History. A great deal of scholarship has focused on the enumeration or reconstruction of individual libraries with examples such as Private Libraries in Renaissance England (PLRE), Legacy Libraries, Melville’s Marginalia Online, Louis Stevenson’s Library and Biblioteca Julio Cortázar. The use of this property in Wikidata might facilitate the virtual reconstruction of such libraries which more often than not have been dispersed among different owners and holding institutions. (proposal by GracianiPicardo)

Discussion

•  Support At first I thought that archives at (P485) might be enough, but after some thought that’s not really the case. --Emu (talk) 20:54, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Agree that this should be a separate property for locations of a person’s library collection. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support AhavaCohen (talk) 15:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Infopetal (talk) 15:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support --Emwille (talk) 15:29, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Support, this is distinct from archives at (P485) and will be useful to researchers. --Crystal Clements, University of Washington Libraries (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support BethGuay (talk)
•  Strong support Awesome idea, we have several collections of this sort. Paul / Northwestern Prburley (talk)
•  Support Lrobare (talk) 18:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Great suggestion for these special collections Maryacat (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Agree with everyone above, this is a great suggestion and will be very important for many libraries. --Sandrileine (talk) 14:07, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
•  Question Sounds good, though the last part somehow worries me. How many statements with that property would there be on a given item (maximum)? One or few doesn't seem problematic. I suppose one book wouldn't be sufficient to add a statement with this property. --- Jura 14:15, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Our working definition for a personal library held by a cultural heritage institution is a collection of at least 50 books/serials previously owned by the subject, 25 for individuals who lived pre-1800. --GracianiPicardo (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Agreed - this is an important property for libraries. --Nashona (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
•  Support very useful immediately Pru.mitchell (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• @GracianiPicardo, Emu, AhavaCohen, Infopetal, Emwille, Clements.UWLib:  Done as personal library at (P9419). I also created an inverse label item: has personal library of (Q106401161), so if you are looking at a library organization item if you click on "show derived statements" you will see whose personal papers are at that library. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 01:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @UWashPrincipalCataloger: This is great! Thanks so much --GracianiPicardo (talk) 15:43, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• @BethGuay, Prburley, Lrobare, Maryacat, Sandrileine, Jura1:  Done as personal library at (P9419). I also created an inverse label item: has personal library of (Q106401161), so if you are looking at a library organization item if you click on "show derived statements" you will see whose personal papers are at that library. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• @Nashona, Pru.mitchell:  Done as personal library at (P9419). I also created an inverse label item: has personal library of (Q106401161), so if you are looking at a library organization item if you click on "show derived statements" you will see whose personal papers are at that library. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2021 (UTC)