How to find publication date of a book

Most books, magazines, newspapers and other media include a publication date. Publication dates are useful for researchers, who need the publication date to cite the material; or even to casual users who want to know when the piece of content was published. Finding publication dates can be easy. However, with the advent of diverse forms of new media like blogs and video, it can get trickier.

Look for the publication date in its standard location. In books, it would be with the other publication information in the front of the book, generally before the table of contents.

Look for the publication date of magazines and newspapers on the cover or, in the case of periodicals, the spine, back page or around the table of contents.

Look for the publication date of new media in a variety of places. Many blog posts list the publication date as a "time stamp" on the post. Videos uploaded to YouTube will display the day they were uploaded.

Note

Be aware that a publication date is often not the same as the date of copyright. If in doubt, contact the publisher of the material.

Things You'll Need

• Media that you are seeking the publication date for
• Computer with Internet connection at home or in a library to search library records or other archives

I am practicing making citations of quotes and I am currently stuck on publication dates.

To illustrate my issue, let’s use this this book:

• The front pages state the copyright date as three separate years, which I have no idea how to interpret (see image below).

• I checked on Google, and I found this on Amazon stating the publication date of Aug 10, 2010.

• Checking the official site of publisher, I see "© 2011".

Do I need to make assumptions when taking the date, e.g., taking the first date from copyright without being certain that it is the correct publication date? I know I can contact the publisher and ask, but that seems like (a) a lot of work and (b) it’s pretty unlikely I’ll get a reply. I want to know if there are any tips on making sure that the publication date of the book is correct.

Wrzlprmft♦

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asked Dec 3, 2015 at 18:12

The three dates you see are the years the copyright was renewed. You probably just want the most recent of those dates, as that's the edition of the book you're working with.

Note that it can get more complex than that—edition and copyright date are not always the same—but its definitely good enough for citations.

answered Dec 3, 2015 at 18:29

eykanaleykanal

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3

Your best bet is probably to look the book up in WorldCat, which (because it contains records from thousands of libraries) is quite likely to have separate records for each edition of the book. (Why? It's a long story. Seymour Lubetzky was a nitpicker.) Looking at the earliest available records indicates a 1990 copyright date for the first edition of the book, which is probably close enough to the publication date to satisfy an editor or instructor.

The real question is which edition you should be citing. It's probably the one you're actually using, the fourth! WorldCat's consensus (though not unanimous; bad records do sometimes sneak in) answer to the date of the fourth edition is 2011.

answered Dec 4, 2015 at 0:17

D.SaloD.Salo

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Publishers often fudge on the copyright dates by putting one year later than the real publication year. See for instance this answer, or google for "publication date vs copyright date".

So it is very likely that the book was published in 2010.

answered Dec 3, 2015 at 18:57

Federico PoloniFederico Poloni

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Cite 2011. The other two years, 1995 and 2004, correspond to the first two editions of the book. If you're citing this (third) edition you should naturally use 2011.

As for the fact that you can find the book on Amazon in 2010, as the marketing department explained to me when I was in academic publishing, it's because when the book is "printed" (read: arrives at the warehouse) it's already late 2010. From the warehouse the book still needs to be shipped around the world, so that when it's actually available for purchase in Amazon, it's 2011. In the meantime, it's available for pre-order, because once the printing process starts it's usually clear when the book will be complete. The time required to produce a book can be very uncertain, but the biggest uncertainties are earlier in the production process.

answered Jun 19, 2019 at 4:42

AllureAllure

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