Talk:Hong Kong Central Library

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Please read /Archive: category war for old discussions.

What is a bank library?

The page states that this library has been designated as a "bank library." A search of Wikipedia seems to show the term "bank library" is not used anywhere else. Anybody know what is meant by "bank library" and how we can clarify that? — Waphle 16:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now change it to "legal deposit library", I figure that what the original author meant. The Hong Kong Central Library is the "national library" of Hong Kong although Hong Kong is not a nation and I have no idea what is the equivalent term of National Library for the main library of a Special Administrative Region. - Pelikan4001 (not logged in)

Please decide what should be done

It's seen that Instantnood and Huaiwei had quite a big war about the "see also" section. In fact, I quite oppose Instantnood's action in linking the page to a category page that the page doesn't belong to. However, as the previous dispute (categorizing) is not yet solved, I want to hold another vote to avoid anymore nonsense disputes of such kind in the future. Deryck C. 15:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Please vote by adding a #~~~~

Vote: This article should be on the National Library category

Support

1. Deryck C. 15:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Comments

• Is this vote legal or what? -- Jerry Crimson Mann 15:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
• I would just like to point out that voting is hardly a sensible means of resolving this dispute. If I feel enough passion for a POV, I could go ask 100 of my friends to register an account and vote here, something anyone else can do too.--Huaiwei 15:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Huaiwei. A vote is not a good way to make a decision for something on Wikipedia. Consensus building should first be done through discussion. Votes might sometimes, but not always, be necessary as the last resort, and to gather the choice of participants after some form of agreements have been reached. My vote would clearly be a support vote, but I don't think it's appropriate to have the poll at the time being. — Instantnood 17:55, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
    • I am glad that at least some form of "concensus" can be reached here. It is in fact a Wikipedia official policy that Wikipedia is not a democracy.--Huaiwei 18:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
      • But no concensus was ever made about the national library issue. Deryck C. 04:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
        • I think both parties have already made their stand, but the discussion was not exactly over, actually. So far, supporters of this entity being a national library has been basing it on de facto instead of factual evidence, something not always acceptable here, since a "national" institution is not an issue to be triffled with. (We cant just go round passing things off as "national" flags, "national" anthems, "national" flowers, "national" airlines, and so forth, when they are no evidence that they have been formally accorded that status) I did ask for evidence to show that this library has been gazetted as a "national" library, and I am perfectly open to the idea of calling it a national library as long as this evidence exists.--Huaiwei 05:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
          • You're trying to limit the discussion to carry on according to your definition, that is, official designation. As you have said, the basis of de facto is not always accepted.. similarly it is not always rejected. We should instead discuss on the criteria for listing. — Instantnood 10:17, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
            • In the same way that you are trying to limit the discussion to the basis of de facto as well, so whats there to point out? Sure, of coz not all de facto arguments are rejected, but the fact that they are rejected sometimes tells you something. This is one good example of its rejection, as clearly explained above. There is no such thing as a de facto national emblem, if I may repeat.--Huaiwei 11:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
              • Two questions are generated.. why is there no such thing as a de facto national emblem? And why is this analogy or comparison valid? — Instantnood 19:11, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
                • Then can you give us an example of a de facto national emblem from anywhere else in the world which is commonly accepted to be deemed as "national"? And what analogy/comparison??--Huaiwei 19:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
                  • There were unofficial national coat of arms and de facto national flags, but is it relevant here? Is the comparison valid? — Instantnood 11:05, August 2, 2005 (UTC) (modified 11:35, August 2, 2005 (UTC))
                    • A coat of arms is not neccesarily a national emblem. Even schools have it. And may I know which "national flag" is de facto here?--Huaiwei 11:30, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
                      • The Canadian Red Ensign for instance. Australia had an unofficial coat of arms [1] before the first official one was granted in 1908. The silver fern (Cyathea dealbata) is an unofficial national emblem of New Zealand [2]. Back to the question, why is national emblem relevant to national library? What is the meaning and definition of "national", and what are the criteria? — Instantnood 09:58, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
                        • Yeah, and notice Canadian Red Ensign was not listed as a natonal flag? Both cases of the Canadian and Australian entities were former unofficial entities which if used today, wont have been classifable alongside official ones. As for the NZ entities, clearly all those non-official entities cannot be listed together with the national birds/national flowers of other countries. And why is this relevant? Because you are seemingly trying to use "unofficial" and "status quo" status to apply to the national library;s status. I have clearly mentioned above what varuous criteria for a national library are. If you want to know what a "national" entity is, you might want to consider calling up the Beijing government, as I dont think I am in a position to answer. :D--Huaiwei 10:39, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
                          • I've got an impression that the only criterion you'd recognise is official designation. Correct me if I'm wrong. :-) — Instantnood 10:42, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
                            • Go read. ;)--Huaiwei 11:17, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
                              • If that's your position I supposed it's time to proceed to talk:list of national libraries or even talk:national to discuss on the definition and criteria. — Instantnood 11:25, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
                                • And for?? The criteria for a national library has already been mapped out here. Instead of trying to find evidence based on those criteria, you prefered to spend time causing trouble in other pages, before coming back here, feigning ignorance, and asking the same questions all over again. As i said. Go read, and then come back to me. I am not going to waste time on such incorrigible individuals.--Huaiwei 11:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
                                  • Your own set of criteria does not always rule. Why shouldn't we listen to the comments of other people and resolve the disagreements? — Instantnood 11:52, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
                                    • Of coz it dosent, but notice others cant seem to think it bothers them enough to comment about this entity? If there are other comments to be sought, then wait for them to come, or make an accouncement somewhere. Not splinter the discussion all over the shop in your quest to look for loopholes to be exploited.--Huaiwei 12:15, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
                                      • The problem we're facing is that there's not a clear and agreed set of criteria for the list, and for the usage of "national". It's not only about this library in Hong Kong. — Instantnood 12:23, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Design Controversy?

Aside from the great national library debate... I seem to remember when the Library was first proposed, there was a huge and rather public argument (and surrounding controversy) between 2 government officials over which design should be used. Does anyone else think this should be included in the article, and if so, does anyone recall enough detail about it to contribute (because I certainly don't)? - Hinto 20:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It was actually between members of the Urban Council and the Director of Urban Services (who headed the Urban Services Department). Don't have much information on hand right now. The UrbCo was dissoluted, and the proceedings are probably no longer online. — Instantnood 15:58, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome to supply us with any raw or "cooked" materials if you can ^_^ Deryck C. 11:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Really not much. — Instantnood 19:29, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Leave it in that case. Deryck C. 04:43:20, 2005-09-09 (UTC)

The current design was deemed a bit too much like a shopping mall, people were outraged about the design and particularly the colour. So they had a committee hearing (I think) at the Legco / Urban Council (Regional Council) and, I think, eventually had a ballot on whether to keep the current design or use the other design that is alluded to by Hinto above (it was deemed a bit conservative, the building - if I remember correctly - it looked like a jumbo sized City Hall), or to start anew by commissioning a third design.

Supposedly these details can be unearthed from the Legco's or the Urban/Regional Council's websites. The Legco website however only contain materials dated back to 1998, nothing earlier is available online. A document (FCR(98-99)58) on the Legco website I could find stated the Hong Kong Central Library (Project No. 005CL) started in 8/96 and the target completion date is 11/99 (which is almost 1.5 years before the library actually opened). To find the materials someone would need make a trip to Legco to go through the transcript database Pelikan4001 9 June 2006

edit section

Wow... good job instantnood... how could you have done that... Deryck C. 15:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Pardon? — Instantnood 19:29, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I mean, the section edit button stuff. Deryck C. 04:44:29, 2005-09-09 (UTC)

Put all the pictures in a right-aligned table. ;-) — Instantnood 07:58, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

That easy!????? Deryck C. 07:09:54, 2005-09-12 (UTC)

Hanyu Pinyin?

I've removed the Hanyu Pinyin of 香港中央圖書館 from the article because I think it's too clumsy here. Leave a comment and discuss if any one of you object this. Deryck C. 08:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Country

Re, Deryck Chan.[3] If some articles on Wikipedia treat Hong Kong as a separate country from China, for apparently no good reason and against the facts and law, then those articles should be changed. Wikipedia does not have to be uniform, anyway. Also, your blind reversion of my edit reversed some other important changes:

1. It does not comply with WP:MOSFLAG;
2. It degrades accessibility;
3. It is Hong Kong-centric, providing no context as to greater place location of "Wan Chai";
4. It makes the text unreadable: Chinese characters appear in the middle of an English sentence.

So please. If you have some extraordinary reason to treat a mere city as its own independent country, explain yourself here. But I don't think the amount of characters you get in an edit summary will be sufficient, so don't revert yet. Shrigley (talk) 01:19, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with that except for the need to add China. Hong Kong is separate from the PRC in most things, not least libraries. Further 'Hong Kong' clearly and precisely tells any reader where the library is. If they do not know where Hong Kong is there are many ways they can find out; follow that link, or the one to Causeway Bay, or the coordinates at the top of the article. It may seem odd to place Hong Kong in the country slot, but no more so than e.g. entering Hong Kong in the "country" field of an immigration form or when filling in your address in order to get something sent to you. There are times when it's important to emphasise that Hong Kong is a dependant territory of China but I don't see the need here.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Re Shrigley (1) & (2): my apologies; I'm a cross-wiki contributor and not a MediaWiki developer, so forgive me for not keeping up with changes to the MOS. Re (4), the Chinese characters concern an error involving two homophones, so it is impossible to convey the meaning of the passage without using them. I think John has come up with a nice middle-ground version which improves readability and accessibility while preserving meaning.
• On to the long point of (3). We're talking about a library here, so let's talk books, and other "hardware which contain knowledge". Hong Kong is allocated separate ISBN ranges from China (HK 962-..., CN 7-...); so does the ISMN agency who identifies HK and CN by these separate country codes. What more should I say? As you may have noticed this week, Hong Kong has its own team in the Olympics; Hong Kong has a separate education system, thus Mainland China and Hong Kong's educational institutions treat each other's students as "overseas", and institutions all around the world treat Hong Kong and China as separate countries (see, for instance, the examples I cited at Talk:List of university and college schools of music); Hong Kong is therefore also a separate country from China in all international academic and art competitions such as the International Science Olympiads; Hong Kong is outside the Great Firewall of China (to the great relief of Wikimania 2013 attendees).
• So please, if you still have some extraordinary reason to believe Hong Kong isn't a country in the context of this article, please explain yourself here. I don't think the amount of characters you get in an edit summary will be sufficient either, so don't revert yet.
• Oh, and about the "context": Wan Chai is of course wikilinked so that readers may gain some context from that article; and for the few ignorant readers who don't understand what Hong Kong is, we're thrilled to have them here, and the plan to educate them is of course via the wikilink to Hong Kong. Deryck C. 23:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Sovereign states are not the only countries on this planet. Dependent territories (in its generic sense) are always considered countries. The Philippines, Bermuda, British Guiana, etc., all had their Olympic debut before their independence (Bermuda isn't yet a sovereign state). If you want to equate countries with sovereign state, please proceed to the relevant policy page(s) on Wikipedia. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:CE0:2201:8804:646:65FF:FE8A:6B44 (talk) 09:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Public art

I'm not digging for sourcing now, but if possible, might be nice to add some information about the public art displayed in and around the library. I noticed quite a few sculptures right around the main entrance, and surely there are more works displayed throughout the building. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:02, 12 December 2017 (UTC)