Just got a book from the library called The Secret Society of Polygamy.
Its says copyright 2002.
How?
Its NOT 2002 yet!
maybe its a typo
maybe the book wasn’t supposed to be released yet
go ask the publisher
Just a WAG: Since a copyright relates to the Library of Congress, it’s possible it goes by the Fed’s fiscal year which starts Oct 01 of any year. So, in that regard, we’re in fiscal year FY-02.
- Jinx
Thank you.
Thought I was in a time warp or somethin
I wonder if there is more to this than a typo–alternatively, such typos are more common than one would think.
This chemistry book was published in March 2001, according to Barnes and Noble.com, but the copyright year printed in the book itself is 2002. Kind of weird putting that in the bibliography of a thesis dated 2001. (I decided to use 2001 in the biblio.)
The cynic in me thinks its to make the book appear to be “new” for a longer period than putting the true copyright year. Rather like buying a “2002” car in 2001.
The book isn’t going to be published for the general public until 2002, so that’s what the publishers put on the book. Also, the publisher may have printed up the books with the anticipation that it wouldn’t be released until next year, but it wasn’t.
It’s a fairly standard phenomenon.
BTW, if you are citing a book, you should use the date that appears on the title page, not on the copyright notice.
There’s no date on the title page. The only dates listed anywhere are the copyright date and the date listed under the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: both are 2002.
So anyway, as I stated before, the only other info I have is from the Barnes and Noble website linked above; it states that the book was published in March 2001.
What date do you think I should list for the bibliography citation?
use the title page. it’s the one that most people will recognize for the publication of the book.
someone in some other thread (dunno which one) cleared up much of the confusion with copyright dates. basically the work is copyrighted when you put pen to paper (for a written work). you can put a date on it, within a year or two of the actual date, IIRC, but the actual date is the date it was written. so don’t try to copy the book and put a 2001 date on it and sue them.
Thanks, but:
If there is no title, then you use the copyright date. At least that’s the rule in library cataloging.
You may notice in some library catalogs that dates are listed as c1999 or some such thing. That means that the date was taken from the copyright page.