Venue Grouping

While it definitely makes sense to have separate venue pages for each location of a chain store or library system, it feels a bit redundant to have to put all the shared information (e.g. venue type, website, catalog, social media) on each individual venue page. It also just feels a little...unfinished? that the only way to pull up, say, all Barnes & Noble locations is to manually search for "Barnes & Noble". I'm thinking that Local could combine the features of New Series and Work Relationships for venues: New Series features like having a landing page for the overarching organization, various ways to order the locations (e.g. distance, date established, etc.), and subgroups (e.g. Defunct locations); and Work Relationships features like flowing down the aforementioned shared details from the landing page. There could still be fields for venue-specific details if an organization has, for example, separate Twitter accounts for each location.

This would also be good for fairs/festivals since a lot of those have separate venue pages for each instance of the event, even if they've been held in the same physical location for decades.

But each Barns and Noble is a unique location. They aren't all the same. Just to say your prime example is faulty.

And how would you distinguish between franchises and the company owned stores? Or if some small book stores have the same name but are not related in teh least?

I'm not really liking this idea.

>2 gilroy: I don't think that anyone is thinking of automated connection so same-named bookstores won't get connected unless someone does it manually...

I kinda like the idea of being able to easily find all available branches of a library system or all local location of a chain bookstore...

I love the idea. Most bookstores are not solely brick-and-mortar anymore, nor are libraries. It would be nice to be able to indicate that I ordered some books online from Politics and Prose without having to pick from one of the 3 storefronts, or that I downloaded an audiobook from my local library without having to specify that I got it from a particular branch.

The grouping of different years of a recurring festival is a good idea too.

>4 norabelle414: that I downloaded an audiobook from my local library without having to specify that I got it from a particular branch.

I do a lot of ILL borrowing, and I've never been able to settle on whether my From where? should be for the library that owns the book or the one I borrowed it through. (Grouping wouldn't help this problem.)

>2 gilroy: Is there any occasion where it matters to LTers whether the store is a franchise or company-owned? The main purposes of Local and venue pages generally are 1) to help people find bookstores, libraries, etc. near them, and 2) indicate in their own catalog where they got a book. Neither of those require knowing whether a venue is a franchise or company-owned. I'm pretty sure the only occasion when it matters to the consumer at all is whether or not certain coupons are valid at a given location, or when filing a lawsuit against a specific location. Nothing that LT needs to distinguish between. But even if it did matter, that's another thing subgroups could be used for.

>3 AnnieMod: Correct, I'm not suggesting any kind of automated grouping of stores of the same name. Just like with Series, it would have to be added on purpose (though I think it'd be safe to run a one-time script to round up all the Barnes and Nobles).

>4 norabelle414: (Heh, perhaps it says something about who needs this idea most that we both live in range of Politics and Prose). Also, when it comes to online ordering from second-hand bookstores, it can indicate something about the book: If I walk in to the Second Story warehouse in Rockville, all the books on the floor are 50% off because they weren't able to sell them in Dupont Circle. But if I order a book from their website, while it's physically coming from the same warehouse, it was kept off the floor because it was rare or niche or 1st edition or in excellent condition or something else that they were pretty sure would benefit from being sold online. And I totally agree about libraries. I belong to some library systems that I have never physically been to because they've licensed something from OverDrive or something that the DC or MoCo or Arlington libraries haven't.