User:Archiveghost/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?

I am evaluating the Carnegie library wiki article.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I choose this article because like Carnegie Pittsburgh was my home city! I was also aware of Carnegie's investment into the early American public library system and think that work is really important and interesting. My first impression of the article is that not only does it have a really nice amount of written information but the article also links to other relevant articles, has several relevant images, and also is very thoroughly cited. I also was happy to see that criticisms of Carnegie was also given a section.

Evaluate the article

Lead Section

The lead section of this article was concise and yet very detailed. It included several relevant stats about Carnegie libraries and also provides insight into what exactly a Carnegie library is.

• The introductory sentence is incredibly useful in defining a Carnegie Library and is short and clear.
• The lead section does not include any details about the sections within the article.
• The lead section does include information that cannot be found elsewhere in the article. Primarily, the information that cannot be found later in the article includes, some of the numbers of libraries built in other countries as well as most locations where not listed later in the article.
• This lead is a concise, two short paragraphs.

Content

The content of the article is really interesting and spans all relevant details of the article topic. The sections include; History, Background, Carnegie formula, Design, Self-service stacks, Criticism, and Continuing legacy.

• All the content of the article was relevant to the topic.
• All content is up-to-date with the most recent edit being made as recently as September 28th of this year.
• For a brief Wikipedia article I do believe that this provides a good over view of the topic but I wish there was more details on how these libraries interacted with their communities and how it was viewed by the communities. I think that all the information that was included is good and should stay.
• The Criticism section provides a good look at how these libraries were viewed by the working class. Additionally, in the History and Criticism section we get some insight into how Carnegie provided funding for segregated libraries in the South. I think that both of these sections need to be expanded upon and provided more information, specifically I think there should be more content about the contemporary criticisms of the segregated libraries.

Tone and Balance

I think that in terms of neutrality this article could be worked on. I think while this article includes a Criticism section they do not highlight any of those criticism until that section. If a user were reading this article and stopped prior to this Criticism section that user would have the impression that Carnegie was just a great man who wanted to promote literacy. Unfortunately, the truth is not that simple and needs to be more thoroughly explored.

• I do not believe that this article is neutral.
• I do not see any claims that are particularly biased just a lack of information.
• As I highlighted earlier I do think that criticisms of Carnegie should be highlight throughout the article and should be more in depth them they currently are.
• I do not believe that this article was attempting to persuade anyone in a particular way.

Sources and References

This article is well cited and the majority of the citations are from academic and peer-reviewed sources.

• There are a couple of places were facts are missing citations, but that is few and far between. The Majority of the facts are cited to a reliable secondary source. One area that needs more sources is his contribution to open stack libraries.
• This article cites 50 sources and includes a diverse array of suggested reading which covers a good range of this topic. I do think that this could be expanded since there is so much history in this topic. I imagine there is defiantly more secondary sources that could be referenced.
• Yes, the sources are current. Many of the sources were published after 2015.
• I would say there could be a more diverse range of sources. While there are some women and authors of color, the majority of these pieces were written by white men.
• Because of the depth of this topic there is a ton of sources out there including this NPR article https://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie-turned-his-fortune-into-a-library-legacy and this Library of Congress Research Guide https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-carnegie-libraries and there is also a digital exhibit hosted on the Digital Public Library of America website here https://dp.la/exhibitions/history-us-public-libraries/carnegie-libraries. All of these provide some really great information but the Wikipedia article is the most comprehensive.
• All of the links I clicked on worked! I even clicked on some of the older links from 2005/2006.

Organization and Writing Quality

I thought that this article was very well written and accessible for a wide range of audiences. While writing online content for NASM I was guided to write for an 8th grade reading level, which I believe is fairly standard for public history and other information institutions. I believe this article follows that guideline well.

• This article is very easy and clear to read. It is not excessively wordy.
• I did not catch any grammer or spelling errors while reading the article.
• The article is well organized excluding the ordering of the History and Background sections, these sections should either swap order or be combined.

Images and Media

As I mentioned this article had some really nice images that highlighted some of the more exciting of the Carnegie libraries, including the first Carnegie library in Scotland.

• The design of the libraries is an important aspect of this article, especially when understanding the opulence and expense of building and maintaining these libraries, therefore it is critical to include images of the real libraries. The image of Andrew Carnegie is alright but I don't feel it is needed for this article.
• All of the images have a caption that describes the image and most also include links to other relevant content.
• Yes, all images are public use and available on WikiImages.
• Yes, all of the images are well organized and placed in strategic areas throughout the article.

Talk Page Discussion

• Behind there scenes there are a couple different conversations going on, primarily, one user pointing out the issue of the open stack library section not being sourced and being falsely attributed to Carnegie.
• It has been listed as a level-5 vital article in Society and is rated a C-class. This article is of interest to a couple different WikiProjects including; England, Libraries, New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Scotland, and United States.
• I think that there is a less critical lens of this topic. I think that in all honesty this topic needs to be given more space to hash out the complicated history of these libraries.

Overall Impressions

Overall I did enjoy this article, I think it informed of the history surrounding these libraries that I was not aware of. I think that while I have my concerns with the depth of the content I think that it nearly covers the breadth of the topic.

• The article was able to discuss a wide range of information about this topic without being to dry or difficult to read. Additionally, it was incredibly clear with it's writing. I also really enjoyed the images.
• I really hope to see this article expand to take in the wider criticisms surrounding these libraries and the problematic history of Andrew Carnegie. I also hope to see some more detailed citations and sources outside of white men.
• I would say the article is mid-way through development. I think the bones are good but expansion is needed.

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