Humanities desk
< July 14	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 15

Literary endeavours

Irrelevant ramblings by banned user removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:25, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When I was a student at St Andrews in the 1970s, a story circulated that a new library building at Edinburgh University could not be used as intended because the architect had designed one or more floors to take the weight of the required shelves, but had forgotten to factor in the weight of the books they were meant to carry. It's so good a story that I've never had the heart to actually check its veracity. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.197 (talk) 15:51, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think every college/university has a similar urban legend. Certainly I heard it about one of the libraries at University of Waterloo in the 1990s. In that case, the fact it was an engineering school made the "fact" that much more salacious. Matt Deres (talk) 16:25, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also the fact that at Waterloo this was told of the university's arts library (which had its own building), not the engineering library (which didn't). And that when the arts library building first opened, it was only 7 floors high instead of the planned 10. Of course this was actually just because they didn't need all the space yet, and the other 3 floors were added later. More detail and photos here. --174.89.49.204 (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, here we go. Snopes to the rescue! Matt Deres (talk) 16:27, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So the ubiquitous bookless library legend is debunked. I note however from that Snopes piece the following: "Some tales involve . . . others deal with a residence hall which is sinking because its builder forgot to allow for the weight of the inhabitants and their possessions."

One of the newest halls of residence at St. Andrews (in the 1970s) was Andrew Melville Hall. From the exterior, amongst rather rolling landscaping, it looked (and looks) a little like two ships colliding (originally several radiating wings were planned, but only the first two were built), and the rather spartan interior design used to remind me strongly of the internal corridors of a large car ferry. Whether or not it was sinking I hesitate to affirm, but certainly in wet weather the lowest, semi-basement level used to accumulate an inch or more of water on the floor, which was rather inconvenient for residents and visitors (of whom I was frequently one). One hopes that by now, 40-odd years later, the problem has been solved! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.197 (talk) 21:56, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Youtube clip

I'm looking into a topic which doesn't really have textual references, but rather has a citation in the form of a video from a news source. Are there any pages on wikipedia which use a Youtube clip as a source? If so, could you list a few please? 79.67.85.171 (talk) 14:56, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not finding it, but I'm fairly certain that YouTube, in general, is not considered a reliable source. The exception might be if a given YouTube channel is some entity's "official" YouTube. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does WP:YOUTUBE help? Matt Deres (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Or WP:RSPYT. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I used a few when creating London to Brighton in Four Minutes (and I'm taking a risk in admitting it!). Thincat (talk) 21:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anschluss

What was the international reaction to the Anschluss (Nazi Germany annexing Austria in 1938)? How did other countries respond? Thank you, Heyoostorm (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's a Reactions section in the Anschluss article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I didn't see that before Heyoostorm (talk) 14:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also Heyoostorm, see The American Reaction to Germany's Annexation of Austria. Alansplodge (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A problem with the Google News Archive

I was able to access this old article on the Google News Archive because I had previously saved a link to it:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wCpUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IjoNAAAAIBAJ&pg=587,1878528&dq=111th-birthday&hl=en

This article is about the 111th birthday of Robert Alexander Early as well as about his death the following day. (If you're curious, he's certainly a real/true supercentenarian case. I have found his 1850, 1860, and 1870 US Census entries and numerous other records and documents for him and they--especially his earliest documents--confirm that he was the age that he claimed to be. One day, hopefully his case will be verified by the Gerontology Research Group instead of merely being a pending case on their lists.) Anyway, the problem is that even though I can access this Google News Archive article by clicking on its link, I am incapable of finding it by doing a search of the Google News Archive. Can anyone here please explain to me why exactly I cannot find this article by doing a search of the Google News Archive? I've tried and various searches of this archive always fail to return this article and really any article about Mr. Early even though I clearly remember when I was researching his case back in 2013 that the Google News Archive contained numerous articles about him from when he was ages 101 to 111 (so, for the last decade of his life). So, what's up with this? Any thoughts? Futurist110 (talk) 23:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]