Template:TitleFields:Date

• Date - The original publication date of this title. Note that if you are cloning a publication, this field is not editable for existing content records. If you leave this field blank it will default to the same date as the publication which contains it. This is the right thing to do if this is a first publication of the work. Otherwise, check the copyright and acknowledgments pages to see what date is given to the title. For works that have had variant titles, the date to enter is the first under any title and any pseudonym; variant titles do not have their own dates. If a work has been heavily revised to the point that it is essentially a different story, the date used should be that of the first version that is essentially the same. Major revisions of this nature are a feature of James Blish's work, for example. If there is some ambiguity about whether two versions are the same or should be treated differently, discuss the stories on the author's project page.
  • Serializations.
    • Books: If a work has been serialized in a magazine, there may be a difference in textual content between the first magazine publication and the first book publication. "Skylark of Valeron", for example, appeared as a magazine serialization in 1933-4, but was not published in book form until 1949. Therefore, record the first book publication date. A note in the title field can record the magazine serialization date, if there is one. (Note that as more fully explained in Help:Use of the SERIAL type#Date Rule, the ISFDB uses the date of first book publication even if the magazine text is known to be the same as the book text.)
    • Magazines: Serial installments of a work are always given the date of the magazine in which they appear even if the work has been published previously in book or serial form. Novel length works (40,000+ words) printed as a single installment in a magazine are treated as serials and given the date of the issue in which they appear; the Title Type is "Serial" and the text "(Complete Novel)", preceded by a space, is appended to the title. See "Beyond This Horizon" for an example of a novel which was published as a multi-part serial, a book, and then as a single installment serial.
  • Plays and Scripts. Use the date when a play or script (teleplay, screenplay, radioplay, etc) was published, not the date when it was performed or broadcast. (If a dramatic work has been performed but not published in writing, it should not be entered.) In some cases plays and scripts are not published until many years after they are first performed.
  • Sources. If you know that a book's first edition is prior to the date in the title, the best thing to do is find a copy of the first edition, and enter that publication. Then the title record can be updated to match the earlier publication. If you're unable to locate a copy of the earlier book, it is generally not a good idea to use a copyright date without further checking. Copyright dates occasionally differ by a year from the date of publication of the book they refer to. Instead, look for secondary sources, such as bibliographic reference works, and enter data from there. Record your source in the notes field.