Talk:Tag:amenity=public bookcase

I suspect that "public bookcase" is an American term rather than an English one - I've certainly never heard it used outside the OSM tagging list (unlike "book exchange", which I suspect is what you're trying to describe here).

SomeoneElse (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I have used the term adopted by Wikipedia: public bookcase. --Zethradon (talk) 02:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Never heard of it. Is this a quirky minority thing, or are they all over the place, just not in the UK? It makes me think it shouldn't have it's own top-level tag, like maybe it's a just a kind of "artwork". -- Harry Wood (talk) 02:20, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

There are thousands of them all around the world, see here for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Free_Library ; http://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/; https://openbookcase.org/ ; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_öffentlicher_Bücherschränke. A proposal for the top-level-tag has been accepted. --ChristianSW (talk) 07:15, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Give box

Surprised there's not a mention of amenity=give_box from Proposed features/give box in voting even now. Could well take note of it when deciding tags or editing here. Kovposch (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

LFL charter #

use Reference code field for official Little Free Library charter #? (LFL charter # tag Mapillary example: Lafayette, Colorado, USA) DougGrinbergs (talk) 07:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Only Takeaway

I just mapped a public bookcase where the operator does not wish that people put books in there. They want to fill it by themself and that others only take away books. I don't have any tagging scheme for that. For now I used the "descrition" tag but maybe one could invent some. First I thought something like "take=yes/no" and "give=yes/no" but it seems to general to me. Maybe better "public_bookcase:in_out=in/out/both" or something? -- Deus Figendi (talk) 17:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Being general is good. *:in_out=out is quite verbose. I can think of several options at the moment:

1. public_bookcase=out or similar
2. give_box=no (to borrow the more general amenity=give_box)
3. books:accept=no (to build on reusable_packaging:accept=* and books=*)

In any case, public_bookcase:type=* should be deprecated. Half of it is material=*, and other half duplicates other features (except perhaps *=building). --- Kovposch (talk) 05:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

I like the third idea most, but to be honest, none of them is really satisfying. I would rather drop material=* than public_bookcase:type=* because most (!) bookcases are made of several materials, for example a metal case with a plastic doorframe and glass, the shelfs inside made of wood. Maybe Colour=* would be more useful than material=* but maybe this is it's own topic?

I will tag public_bookcase=out_only and books:accept=no for that single case and in a year or something we could see what taginfo tells us about it. -- Deus Figendi (talk) 08:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Some mappers use ...:policy or reuse:policy=* eg. reuse:policy=free_to_take to document this https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=free_to_take#values. It comes from the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Reuse. What do you think about public_bookcase:policy=free_to_take? --ToastHawaii (talk) 15:59, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not in amenity=give_box in the end, which replaced amenity=reuse. Although there are a few give_box:policy=*, *:policy=free_to_take_or_give is very verbose. --- Kovposch (talk) 10:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

No brand, no ref

One could use

amenity=public_bookcase
nobrand=yes
noref=yes

to avoid doubt that one forgot to record the ref etc. of an unmarked public bookcase. Jidanni (talk) 13:03, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Direction

Maybe add direction=* for the direction(s) the bookcase is facing. Jidanni (talk) 13:42, 8 September 2023 (UTC)