History of United States publishing practices: dates on title pages and their meaning (publishing vs. printing)

[MCCUTCHEON, SEVIM]

I work primarily on new acquisitions of monographs, both print and electronic, but lately my library has been working on a project to identify, protect, and correct/beef up bib records of books published before 1901. As a result, my graduate student assistants and I have been examining a lot of old books, most published in the United States, and some in Britain.

We know that for 'modern' or 'newish' books, that when a date appears on the title page of a book, it is a publishing date. There may or may not be a copyright date as well, often on the title page verso. Though practices about how and where in a bib record to record dates have changed a little between AACR2 and RDA, under both standards, it's expected that the cataloger will record the date of publication if there is one - that is, the date on the title page.

On the other hand, we've observed from working with a lot of books from the late 1800s and early 1900s and corresponding bib records that the date on the title page may not be as bibliographically significant as the copyright date on the title page verso. It seems to be a printing date rather than a date of publication.

So a few questions and requests:

1. Are we coming to the correct conclusion, that in the past, American and British publishing practices were to place on the title page the date of printing, rather than the date of publication, and therefore the copyright date, if provided, is more bibliographically significant?

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, then can anyone provide a brief history lesson, particularly about when publishing practices changed from placing a printing date on the title page to placing the date of publication on the title page?

Corrections and elucidation welcome!

Thank you,

(Ms.) Sevim McCutcheon
Catalog Librarian; Assoc. Prof.
Kent State University Libraries
330-672-1703
Lmccutch-***@public.gmane.org


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[Tina Gunther]

Ms. McCutcheon asked about the publishing practices concerning the
publication / printing / copyright dates in books issued pre-1940? Please
send answers to the AUTOCAT list.

From my own experience, I can affirm that 40 years ago. I was taught almost

40 years ago to use the date on the title page, if any, over the verso
date(s) in my description. WorldCat reflects this practice with many bib
records reflecting printing dates instead of copyright dates. Later
instructions were to favor the dates from the verso instead, but there
thousands of WorldCat bib records following the older practice.

-Tina Gunther

Tina Gunther <tina.gunther-UTPFqA7widyHXe+***@public.gmane.org>
Library Technician (x5608)
Biola University, La Mirada CA

I work primarily on new acquisitions of monographs, both print and
electronic, but lately my library has been working on a project to
identify, protect, and correct/beef up bib records of books published
before 1901. As a result, my graduate student assistants and I have been
examining a lot of old books, most published in the United States, and some
in Britain.
We know that for 'modern' or 'newish' books, that when a date appears on
the title page of a book, it is a publishing date. There may or may not be
a copyright date as well, often on the title page verso. Though practices
about how and where in a bib record to record dates have changed a little
between AACR2 and RDA, under both standards, it's expected that the
cataloger will record the date of publication if there is one - that is,
the date on the title page.
On the other hand, we've observed from working with a lot of books from
the late 1800s and early 1900s and corresponding bib records that the date
on the title page may not be as bibliographically significant as the
copyright date on the title page verso. It seems to be a printing date
rather than a date of publication.
1. Are we coming to the correct conclusion, that in the past,
American and British publishing practices were to place on the title page
the date of printing, rather than the date of publication, and therefore
the copyright date, if provided, is more bibliographically significant?
2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, then can anyone provide a
brief history lesson, particularly about when publishing practices changed
from placing a printing date on the title page to placing the date of
publication on the title page?
Corrections and elucidation welcome!
Thank you,
(Ms.) Sevim McCutcheon
Catalog Librarian; Assoc. Prof.
Kent State University Libraries
330-672-1703
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