Dates in Bibliographic Records Books

Where do you start?  Where on a book do you usually find publication and/or copyright date information?  Title page and/or t.p. verso

If it’s not there…  Use the part of the item giving the most complete information (cover, caption, title page substitute, colophon, etc.)

What are you looking for?  What is the first date to look for when matching?  Publication date

What else?  If there is no publication date, what do you look for next?  Copyright date

How can you tell?  How do you know the difference between a copyright date and a publication date?  Copyright symbol (©) or the word copyright in front of the date

Copyright dates  Your book has a copyright date of 2010 for the text and a copyright date of 2012 for the cover illustration. Which do you use for matching?  Copyright date of the text

Unless…  There is evidence this is a new edition  Illustration copyright date may be used as an implied publication date and will appear in the bibliographic record in brackets: [2012]

Multiple copyright dates  Your book has no publication date, but has: ©2005, 2007, Which copyright date do you use?  Copyright date 2009

Unless…copyright renewal dates  Your book has: ©1945, ©renewed Which date do you use?  ©1945. For works copyrighted before 1978, ignore the copyright renewal date and use the original date  Your book has: ©1985, ©renewed Which date do you use?  ©1992. For works copyrighted after 1977, use the copyright renewal date

Future dates  You’ve received a newly-published book by a best-selling author. The t. p. verso has ©2015. Is it okay to have a future date in a bibliographic record?  Yes

Printing dates  Your book has a publication date of 2012 and a printing date of Which date do you use for matching?  Publication date. Printing dates are usually ignored

Unless…  Your book has no publication or copyright date, but has a first printing date of 2013  2013 may be used as an implied publication date, and will appear in the bibliographic record in brackets: [2013]

Or…  A printing statement implies a new publication, even if there is no publication date. Often seen with Scholastic: First Scholastic printing, March 2005 (usually on the t.p. verso)  First printing date may be used as an implied publication date and will appear in the bibliographic record in brackets: [2005]

What if there’s no date?  Recorded differently in the record depending on cataloging rules used  Pre-AACR: [n.d.]  RDA: [Date of publication not identified]  AACR: Cataloger supplies a date, entered in brackets

Cataloger-supplied dates (AACR)  Dates will be in brackets, and may be followed by a question mark  [2012]  Implied publication date based on available information, i.e, printing date  [2012?]  Estimated date—cataloger made their best guess  [199-]  Publication in the 1990s, not sure what year  [19--?]  Estimated publication sometime in the 1900s

MARC coding for dates -- AACR  MARC tag 260, subfield c  If publication date and copyright date are the same, record only the publication date  260 $aNew York :$bOxford University Press,$c2012.  If publication date and copyright date are different, will often see both  260 $aNew York :$bOxford University Press,$c2012, c2010.  Copyright date is preceded by lower case c  Implied or estimated dates are in brackets  260 $aZion, IL :$bZion Historical Society,$c[2005?]

MARC coding for dates -- RDA  MARC tag 264, subfield c  Publication and copyright dates are recorded in separate fields  $aChicago :$bLion Publishers,$c2012.  $c©2010  Copyright date is preceded by copyright symbol or the word copyright (transcribe from item)  No ending punctuation  Publication date is a core element in RDA. If no publication date is present, but there is a copyright date, the copyright date is recorded in brackets as an implied publication date  $aChicago :$bLion Publishers,$c[2012]  $c©2012

MARC coding for dates – Fixed fields  Coded based on the dates in 260 or 264 subfield c  Type of Date (Polaris) / DtSt (OCLC)  Code that categorizes type of date, i.e., s for single date, or t for publication and copyright date  Date 1 and Date 2 (Polaris) / Dates (OCLC)  Enter publication date in first date box  Enter copyright date in second date box  Check these when editing records – dates in the fixed field affect searching!  Make sure the fixed field and the 260 or 264 match

Changing dates in records  Your new book has a publication date of There is a CIP record in OCLC with Encoding Level 8 that matches your book except that the publication date is Is it okay to change the date in the record to match your book?  Yes, you may upgrade a CIP record to match the item in hand. (Don’t forget the fixed field!)

Changing dates in records  Your new book has a publication date of There is a full-level record in OCLC with Encoding Level I that matches your book except that the publication date is Is it okay to change the date in the record to match your book?  No, no, a thousand times, no!

Unless…  It can be determined that there truly is an error in the bibliographic record

Questions?  Dates can be tricky – call us if you need help!