Talk:Books before 1900

Lucy Broadwood's "English Traditional Songs and Carols" has been submitted in this category. However, as is quite correctly shown, it was not published until 1908. The date of collection of the songs is a secondary factor, as the category title makes it quite clear that the deciding criterion is the actual date of publication. In the circumstances in my opinion this book should correctly be allocated to the post-1900 section. --Irene Shettle 03:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I would suggest putting it in the pre 1900 section with the inclusion of a phrase like "...although not published until 1908, the contents relate to 19th findings" or something like that.

In addition, I think that the date divisions need revisiting to consider how to cope with anomalies like this. --JohnnyAdams 12:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if a date division of this sort is actually justified, as it isn't related to a specific event or change in the collecting world that I'm aware of ? You might just as well use the 1914 date (which was used at the Folklife conference in Sheffield recently to denote just such a specific change in the world in general). Why not pre-1850, or pre-1800 books if you're going to do it in the current way etc etc? I would have thought that a listing of books, by date order of publication might be a more natural way of organising it without imposing an artifical date divide.... just MHO, of course (and my library working days are well and truly long past and gone, so regret I have no idea what classification rules would apply here!) --Irene Shettle 01:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Has this issue been resolved? I am delaying adding further titles until it is a bit clearer. I would have thought that publication date was the criterion. Pre 1914 works for me. I would like to see book titles entered in date order and then using the standard refernce format. At present there is a big difference in presentation between the two date divisions. Why not just copy Margaret Dean Smith's entries in here? Martin