Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biology Today: An Issues Approach

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 no consensus. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Biology Today: An Issues Approach

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Only One among the four authors have wikipedia articles
Google Scholar gives 15 citations 1
This book is not historical being published only in 2003
The book does not explains why it is different than Other College text books
With all due respect to the author it seems that this article does not have any encyclopedic value . Solomon7968 (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom, textbook with no notability. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:39, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:GNG: there exist multiple secondary sources that cover this in nontrivial detail. I don't give a lot of weight to the low citation count on Google scholar: there aren't a lot of biology research paper citations to it because it is an introductory text, not a research monograph. Beyond the expected book reviews (e.g. [1]) I found two published articles comparing multiple textbooks and devoting nontrivial coverage to it ([2], [3]; the first of these two also notes its unusual organization by topics of current interest instead of by levels of hierarchy of complexity), and one article on a specialized topic (the social construction of race) which again covers it nontrivially, singling it out as "The most thorough treatment of race in a current biology textbook" [4]. I also found multiple college courses using this book as a text [5]. I think that's evidence enough for notability, and also enough to answer your question about how it is distinctive. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:52, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- The Jstor page linked is of 1998. But the book was published in 2003! Solomon7968 00:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - The third edition was 2003. See Worldcat for earlier editions. (However, textbook publishers make many editions of their books these days, as a way to discourage the used book market, so I wouldn't read too much into the existence of multiple editions). The Jstor article is clearly talking about the same book. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, SarahStierch (talk) 17:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. In most instances, textbooks never become notable because they're textbooks and most never gain any sort of attention. There are so many of them that their existence is taken for granted, especially since they run through so many various editions. Most journals figure it's not worth their time to review the texts, let alone every edition of it. However once in a while you get a text that does gain critical attention. This is one of those rare instances, as the book has received mention in various peer-reviewed journals as one of the best textbooks of its type in the field. It's also impressive that the book managed to get reviews for two different editions. (The first edition did release in 1996, btw.) I also see where Google Scholar lists it as a reference in several different papers and journals. There isn't a huge amount out there, but coverage does exist and it's just barely enough for this to pass notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:08, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: WP:Run of the mill undergraduate biology textbook. Lack of significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources that would indicate that this textbook stands out from the crowd. Just a couple of routine reviews. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:59, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This does seem to be the most widely used textbook with this approach. Looking at the holdings on WorldCat, when Columbia, Yale, NYU MedSchool, Johns Hopkins, & MIT buy an elementary level introductory biology textbook, it would only be because of its exceptional importance DGG ( talk ) 17:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.