Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I'm new to this and wanted to check on the policy for chosing the date to give for a particular edition.

The librarian manual reads: This field is for noting the date the edition associated with the listed ISBN was published. ... if the book is a first edition, the copyright date will be the same as the date published. If it is a later edition, the date will be different. Some books, not all, will list dates for subsequent publications somewhere on the copyright page. The last date listed is what should be used to fill in the date published.

However, an edition of a book can have multiple reprints, and these may be listed in addition to information about different editions. My understanding is that the ISBN is tied to an edition rather than a print run (hence the multiple edition covers) and picking the last date in the list therefore doesn't necessarly give the original publication date of the edition associated with the ISBN.

For example http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31... almost perfectly matches my copy, except the publicaton date of 1985.

The publication info in my copy reads

First published by Harrap 1925
Published in Peacock Books 1964
Reprinted 1966, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972 (twice), 1973, 1974 (twice), 1975, 1976
Reissued in Puffin Books 1977
Reprinted 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 (twice), 1985, 1986

A search for the ISBN in the British library catalogue shows that it's been in use since the 1964 publication. My understanding is that the puffin reissue in 1977 is actually the same edition rebranded, so the original date of the edition is actually 1964; though given that the entry I'm looking at is tied to the 'puffin' publisher name, my instinct would be to go with a publication date of 1977.

But if I were entering this book in the database and followed the last part of the advice in the librarian's manual, I would pick a publication date of 1986, which is different again to what I think of as the 'edition' publication date and to the date that appears in the database. This feels rather random, as I'm sure there are even later reprints out there.

Also, when I'm checking through the editions on goodreads to find out if there is one matching my copy, it's relatively easy to match the first publication date for the edition, whereas if a reprint date is given it's much less clear - especially if I have a copy that predates the copy entered in the database, and even more so if it's a pre-ISBN book.

I know a reprint date might be relevant for a particular cover but, as far as I can tell from the books I've searched for, the date given for an edition doesn't necessarily match the cover that's been uploaded.

So, I'd welcome some clarification on this, and advice on a) whether and how I should change any publication dates for editions already in the database and b) the best date to pick if I'm entering an edition which I think doesn't already exist?

I would assign to any book, as publication date, the date that it came off the presses. The printing date.

This isn't always easy, or possible; I've noticed that Penguin in particular doesn't like to tell you what the printing date is. A lot of Penguin classics tell you the original publication year that goes with that ISBN, and then they reprint it multiple times with different covers but not with subsequent dates.

Ideally, the publication year should match the year that ISBN was assigned to that edition. In reality, it's hard to make sure that this is the case, given that data being imported from other sources, or being edited by librarians, may not be entirely accurate.

I think the following thread answers your question:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...

For the book you posted the edition date should therefore be 1964. I think the publisher should be Peacock Books, which is a former imprint of Puffin. We generally use the most specific imprint.

I agree with your instincts--an edition pretty much by definition includes all printings from one type set-up unless there are major changes.

However, I'd say that what you have is probably a 1977 edition, given the change of publisher. "Reissue" is unfortunately very vague--it could mean republication or reprint.

ETA: OK, I take it back--I see that Penguin did an edition in 1964 as part of a Peacock Books publisher series. And Puffin is an imprint of Penguin, so there's no real change of publisher...kind of a gray area. I don't think you'd be wrong to consider your book a printing of the 1964 edition, but I'd still tend toward a 1977 edition, in order to name the Puffin imprint as the publisher.

Thanks for the advice, and the pointer to the earlier thread. I'd done a quick search in the forum but evidently hadn't looked back far enough.

I can see the argument both ways on the 1964 Peacock vs 1977 Puffin question, but I'm inclined to leave the publisher as puffin and change the date to 1977. Changing the publisher might be more confusing as I'm guessing that most of the people who've shelved that edition have a puffin copy.