Is anybody else REALLY interested in original publication da

earlofwess · Post by **earlofwess** » September 6th, 2011, 8:49 am

Is anyone else really interested in the original publication date of any book you read? I'm not suggesting that Librivox require that people include this in their recordings, but does anyone else miss this or find yourself looking up every book on the internet so you can find out when it was written?

To me, it's important to the understanding of a book to know what historical experiences the author had had and into what context he spoke. I don't remember hearing anyone else complaining about lack of publication data (I don't mean on Librivox recordings, but in general), but surely I'm not alone.

Is anyone else out there a habitual "turn to the copyright date" reader?

I want to be really (probably overly) clear that this isn't a complaint, or even a suggestion, just chat.

Edit: Shoot, I've posted this in the wrong forum. If anyone can move this, feel free.

Post by **chocoholic** » September 6th, 2011, 8:56 am

Yes! I always want to know copyright date -- granted, that's partly to check PD-ness, but I also find it helpful to know a little more historical context for the book. I think at one time we discussed including it on our catalog pages, but it would involve some coding that we currently don't have in place. A catalog redesign is in the works and perhaps we can include it then.

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » September 6th, 2011, 9:43 am

The copyright date is in the data base when we enter new projects so it shouldn't be too hard a change to include it on the catalog page. (When we are fully operational on our new servers)

Esther

Cori · Post by **Cori** » September 6th, 2011, 12:28 pm

I don't know if the dates we enter in the database are completely right, though ... it's not always easy to tell which edition of a book is being read, esp. if it's one of the older Frankentexts that Project Gutenberg put out (they corrected / merged their very oldest books using other printings, and reading from one of those is not any kind of canonical version.)

I have a slight smug-face, since I have put the date into my current solo ... but only because I felt it was relevant; mostly people know the later version of the story, so I thought I might head off some of the "this isn't in the book" comments. I try to include dates in summaries, too, just to help those as curious as myself about historical context.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » September 6th, 2011, 2:12 pm

I like to include the publication date, for the reasons that earlofwess mentions. I generally include it in my summaries, but I agree it would be good to have it stated consistently. It frustrates me when Project Gutenberg doesn't give a date, or even an edition.

Ruth

Post by **annise** » September 6th, 2011, 2:24 pm

If I can find it I tend to put the written date rather than the publication date - I am more interested in knowing it was written in 1781 than that edition was published 1901 or that it was written when he was 12 and not published till after his death . (Unless as with Cori there are variations in the editions)

Anne