[RFC] Feature Proposal – Library Types

General talk Tagging general discussion
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I am proposing a new tagging system to indicate the type of user that may utilize a library’s services.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Library_Types

Please discuss this proposal on its Wiki Talk page.

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Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I would recommend going with the OSM de facto standard of <key>:for=<group(s)> as seen in social_facility:for. For example, it could be:

name=Main Street Library
amenity=library
library:for=students;public

or

name=Library of Congress
amenity=library
library:for=United States Congresspeople
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I like the idea of using the subkey “for”, although I should note here that my goal is to standardize these tags so a library for anyone in the government would have the value “government”.

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I’d see that as just as much detail you want to add. “Government” is hard to define, often times there’s some other group specified, in your USDA library example on the wiki, it seems it’s open to the public, but to check out a book you’d need to go through your local library. So something like:

name=National Agricultural Library
amenity=library
library:for=government;public
operator:type=government
access=yes

It gets a bit murky there especially with government. The Library of Congress in the US is designated as a library for Congress but is sometimes a “lender of last resort” to the public via inter-library loans. On a smaller scale, the local university’s library is open to the public, I can use their services, but to check out a book I need to have a student ID or affiliation with the university. How would I tag this? I’d think it would be:

name=Odum Library
operator=Valdosta State University
operator:type=government
amenity=library
library:for=students;faculty
access=yes
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Last year, someone micromapped a library in France with library:for=* and a few other keys that may relevant to this discussion. This New Jersey library has tags going into possibly a little too much detail about borrowing periods and fines. There are also lightly used library=* and library:type=* keys that unsurprisingly mix the manner of operation with subject-matter specialization.

We already have a backwards-compatible tagging scheme for clarifying private access. If a facility is open only to authorized government officials and their staff, then access=private private=government. If a school library is open only to students and faculty, then access=private private=students;employees. The student and faculty parking lot out front can have the same tags. Renderers and some geocoders understand access=private at least.

What’s missing is a way to distinguish between permission to step foot in the library and permission to retrieve a book and borrow it. What if a lending library is lending=yes, a members-only lending library is lending=private private=members, and an academic library is lending=private private=students;employees? In parallel, library=* could still classify the library as, say, academic, allowing a data consumer to call it an academic library without assuming too much more about its operations.

I think this distinction between audience and access would be useful for something like the Newberry Library (a favorite of OHMers). This non-circulating library offers lots of services to the general public, both in person and online.

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Came here to point precisely this! I have to say that @andrewth1’s proposal is a step in the right direction and a really interesting one.

For example in Finland, University libraries are open to all, and anyone (i.e. students and non-studentd alike) can apply (and receive) a library card. Most college libraries are private, however, in the sense that they lend only to students of that particular college. I know of a few private libraries (private both in the sense, that they require membership to enter and/or membership to lend).

In that sense, there’s not necessarily a lot one can truth-preservingly infer from the university, college, government, and school values expect, perhaps, somewhat what kinds of books they mainly contain. And that’s not nothing.

I guess we would really need quite a few tags to capture all these aspects.

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First of all, I would voice my usual dislike towards private= , as it’s unclear what =private it’s referring to for this common keyword. Not only is there ownership= and operator:type= , but now also the possibility of lending= here. It’s further entirely possible to have libraries that can be accessed by students, but only borrowed by staff, resulting in 2 different private= which doesn’t work.
The limitation of *:users= , and *:for= (among others), etc, is they can’t they distinguish between the allowed users, and main user intended. Aside from the service suitability (ie can be prioritized lower on search and rendering), the latter can have consequences on the restriction, eg public use may be limited during peak periods (eg exams), and have other constraints on how much service they can use.
Another difference with social_facility:for= is a =library commonly serves more users than a =social_facility would, including any member of public. The semantics doesn’t match much. As such. I would not use access= + library:for= , as *:for= is not self-explanatory and intuitive enough.
Format-wise, semicolon multival have no meaning in the order that can be inferred, for whether each group is ranked higher than next, or is equal in status and only listed one after another. Therefore, either some *=government + *=government;public , or :government=main + *:public=limited is needed. (or access=yes + a clearer *=government )

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What if a lending library is lending=yes, a members-only lending library is lending=private private=members, and an academic library is lending=private private=students;employees? In parallel, library=* could still classify the library as, say, academic, allowing a data consumer to call it an academic library without assuming too much more about its operations.

+1, also lending=no for a reference library. Some libraries also have items that can be borrowed and others that may only be consulted in the library (or even in a special room in the library), or only if you can demonstrate justified interest e.g. maps, antique books, autographs (not everybody can “touch” the Bach autographs at the national library in Berlin, but if you are a researcher in the field you should get permission (and gloves) I guess).

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A new set of tags with the key library:users=* to indicate the type of library (i.e. which groups of people the library is intended for). To be used in combination with amenity=library.

Even the table with examples already shows that it’s not a right tagging scheme.

  • Why if school library open for public, you suggest to use “public”?
  • And in the same time if university library is open for public, you say “use access”?
  • “College” as a value sounds way too country-specific. If in your country separation between schools/colleges/universities is obvious, it does NOT mean it’s the same everywhere. Why not rather choose more general value, like education?

Also, as already mentioned above, in case you’re touching libraries tagging, it would be probably useful to indicate whether it’s library for actually borrowing books (any regular municipal library probably), for pure touristic purposes (like Way: ‪Abbey Library‬ (‪131605934‬) | OpenStreetMap or Node: ‪Stiftsbibliothek Admont‬ (‪296452808‬) | OpenStreetMap), or both (don’t know particular examples, but presumably any “fancy” library in a big city).

So instead of library:users you probably want a set of multiple tags each serving its own purpose. Owner/operator of the library, who can visit, who can borrow books, what’s the main purpose of this library etc…

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The street parking tagging scheme uses parking:side:private=*. We could take a similar approach for distinguishing between two or more restrictions that are private in nature.

I figure that the tagging on an amenity=library would pertain to the institution’s general rules. If each department has been micromapped at a library or library branch, the rare books department can indicate that it’s only for viewing, not circulation.