Wikipedia:GLAM/State Library of Western Australia/Newspaper project procedures

This project page co-ordinates activities to improve articles and images related to the State Library of Western Australia and the items in its collections. In partnership with Wikimedia Australia the Library is working to add authoritative content to Wikipedia and to encourage other public libraries in Western Australia to do the same. The goal is to share the State's stories with the world along with information about its people and places.

This page provides detailed instruction for creating articles about newspapers. It is a model developed by the State Library of Western Australia as part of its participation in the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. For more information on the project, talk to RenegadeStormie.

Goals

To create a stub article for each WA newspaper as it is being digitised.
To provide sufficient published sources (references) to establish the notability of the entry and to support the claims being made.
Where entries already exist to edit them and add supplementary information.
To create a comprehensive list article of the current and defunct newspapers published in WA.
To engage the public library network and the wider community in adding to the entries.

Procedure for creating a stub-class entry

Before you start an article

To create a stub-class entry:

Choose a newspaper from the table in Ongoing Work.
Add your name to the editor column to let other SLWA staff and volunteers that you are working on this title.
Determine whether an entry already exists for the paper (double check with / without A, An, The).
If no article exists, use the red-linked newspaper from the list to create the newspaper article, including the article contents as shown in the subsections below.
- If an article does exist, but the title appears as red-link in the table, correct the title in the table to match the existing article.
- Many newspapers have the same name. E.g. Daily News, the articles for these papers will be named Daily News (Western Australia) (where it is the only paper in the State with the name), or The Mirror (Kalgoorlie, Western Australia) (where there are or have been other newspapers with the same name). The Wikipedia guidelines for article titles are available at WP:Article titles
- Many Western Australian newspapers have changed names over time. In order to meet Wikipedia's notability requirements, when creating an article ensure that it is for the current or most notable title. Other titles should redirect to the one article. E.g. W.A. Sportsman changed its title seven times over the course of its run, initially to The Call & W.A. Sportsman, thenThe Call, The Call News Pictorial, The New Call, The New Call and Bailey's Weekly, The Call and Bailey's Weekly, and The Call. Since it ran for the longest under The Call that would be the article that all the others would redirect to.

Article contents

The procedures are written for editors using Visual Editor. Wikitext for editors who are not using Visual Editor is included in some sections.

Lead (introduction)

Create the article's lead as follows:

Insert the italic titles template - use the Insert menu, choose Template, then search for Italic title. (If using wikitext, place {{Italic title}} at the top)
If appropriate, use the newspapers infobox template (inserted via the Insert menu) and fill in as much information as you have

The introduction comes after any templates. A sample introduction is below:

Title of newspaper, also published as other title, was / is a daily / weekly / fortnightly English language newspaper published in Town of Publication, Western Australia, Australia.

The Geraldton Guardian, also published as Geraldton Guardian Express, was a tri-weekly English language newspaper published in Geraldton, Western Australia, Australia.

(NB - this section does not need a section heading.)

You should link to the Wikipedia article about the town of publication.

Please ensure you include all name changes. The table of newspaper titles in Ongoing work only includes name changes where the different titles have been digitised, or in cases where the title to be used for the article is not the title that has been digitised. Please refer to the State Library catalogue or speak to RenegadeStormie for assistance with this.

Newspaper history

Create the section History. The section should have a heading (added using the Heading menu). The following should provide you with a starting point for researching the newspaper's history:

Is the newspaper still in publication? (if so, what is the website? Add this as a reference)
Where was / is it published?
What are the dates of publication?
Does it have any name changes?
Who was / is the editor?
How frequently was it / is it published?
Does / did the paper have a focus on any particular issues? (And do you have a source to support this?)

Cite the sources of your information using the Cite templates. These will automatically generate the references section.

Some general references are listed below. You could also use the Trove page for the newspaper and/or its catalogue record in the State or Territory Library as a source of information about the newspaper. To add a reference, use the Cite menu to choose the appropriate type of reference and then fill in the relevant fields.

Availability

If the newspaper has been digitised, you can create a section to discuss this. The section should have a heading, Availability. If a newspaper has only been partially digitised, please include the years that are digitised. A sample paragraph is below:

Issues (year - year) of this newspaper have been digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program of the National Library of Australia in cooperation with the State Library of Western Australia.

Add relevant references using the Cite menu. Two examples are: Newspaper Titles and Newspaper Digitisation Program

State if the newspaper is available in hard copy or microfilm from the State Library of Western Australia and cite the catalogue records.

For example

Issues of the Meekatharra Miner (1909-1918), the Daily Telegraph and North Murchison Gazette (1918-1920), and the Daily Telegraph and North Murchison and Pilbarra Gazette (1920-1947) have been digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program,(citation) a project of the National Library of Australia in cooperation with the State Library of Western Australia.

A daily supplement was published between 2 January 1920 and 24 September 1921.

Hard copy and microfilm copies of the Meekatharra Miner,(citation hard copy) (citation microfilm) the Daily Telegraph and North Murchison Gazette,(citation hard copy) (citation microfilm) and the Daily Telegraph and North Murchison and Pilbarra Gazette(citation hard copy) (citation microfilm) are also available at the State Library of Western Australia.

References

Create the References section, to display all references used throughout your article.

Insert the References list, which can be found under the Insert menu - you may need to click More to display the full list. (If using wikitext, insert {{reflist}} and see Template:Reflist for more information on formatting reference lists)
The References list template will automatically display all inline citations from the article, and will update automatically to include new citations
NB - use inline references, for more information see Citing sources
When adding a reference, use the Cite button at the top of the edit page, as it formats the reference automatically (select the type of reference to insert, e.g. book, web page etc)

External Links

Create the External Links section. This is a bullet list of relevant external websites.

Add a link to the newspaper's website if it is still current.
Add links to the digitised newspaper on Trove. Example:

The Eastern Districts Chronicle (WA: 1877 - 1927) at Trove Digitised newspapers and more

Add links to all name changes of the paper on Trove, if they are listed separately

Talk Page

Templates

Set up the talk page using the following templates:

{{WikiProject Australia|WA=yes|WA-importance=mid|class=list|importance=low}}
{{WikiProject Journalism|class=list|importance=low}}

The talk page can be accessed using the tabs at the top, left hand side of the page. For smaller regional titles, you might want to change WA importance to low in the first template.

Coding inside the templates

All project articles require coding for class and importance for assessment purposes.

Here are some examples of coding that can be added to the talk page to create the following categories:

Category:List-Class Australia articles {{WikiProject Australia|class=list|importance=low}}
Category:Mid-importance Australia stub articles {{WikiProject Australia|importance=mid|class=stub}}
Category:List-Class Western Australia articles {{WikiProject Australia|WA=yes|WA-importance=list|class=list|importance=low}}
Category:Mid-Importance Western Australia articles {{WikiProject Australia|WA=yes|WA-importance=mid}}
Category:WikiProject Western Australia stub articles {{WikiProject Australia|WA=yes||WA-importance=lowclass=stub|importance=low}}
Category:WikiProject Australia stub articles {{WikiProject Australia|class=stub|importance=low}}
Category:List-Class Journalism articles {{WikiProject Journalism|class=list|importance=low}}
Category:Low-importance stub class Journalism articles {{WikiProject Journalism|class=stub|importance=low}}

For a comprehensive explanation of assessment in the Australian project check Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia/Assessment

Finishing the process

Integrating your article in the encyclopedia

Check that the new article is live
Link to the new article from the appropriate regional newspaper list article
Create redirects for all name changes and make sure they are on the appropriate regional newspaper list article e.g. Kalgoorlie Western Argus redirects to The Western Argus
- Ensure you set up redirects for titles that haven't been digitised, as well as those that have been digitised. Contact RenegadeStormie for assistance identifying related titles.
Search for other articles which could link to your new article, for example articles about any key people in the history of the newspaper, the article for the town of publication, etc.
If the newspaper has a common name e.g. The Mirror, add it to the disambiguation page for the term

Add an Infobox

There is a Infobox newspaper template. Please copy and paste the template into your article and add any information you can. Refer to the template page for the definitions of the parameters. There is no need to fill all the sections, if it is not filled it will not appear in the article.

If you add an image of the front page (see below), it will go in the Infobox under the image section. You will only need to use the file name and extension. If you are unsure, look at the source of The Daily Telegraph and North Murchison and Pilbarra Gazette.

Adding an image to your article

Please include, at least, an image of the front page of the 1st issue. This can be downloaded from Trove as a PDF, which needs to be converted to a JPEG or other image format. This can be done using free online conversion tools.

Images should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and linked from your article.

Under the 'release rights' tab select that the 'file is not your own work' and then, 'another reason not listed above'. Use the license {{PD-Australia}} as appropriate for images. Potential categories include Newspapers of Western Australia and Newspapers digitized by the National Library of Australia. Record the author as National Library of Australia, and the source as http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home