What does “Location” mean? Some of my old Booksogs subs have the country of publication stored in this field, yet I don’t remember this particular wording being used in the form at the time of submission. Should it describe the market of release, or the country of publication, or something else? Many books these days are printed in China that are intended for English-speaking markets, so it seems strange to “locate” these books with China.
I’ve wondered this too. In bookogs days this got used for things like the locations of the offices of the publisher, in various countries, which I think now is a bit silly, as that doesn’t really give much useful information about the Edition.
This time round I’ve been using it for the market of publication; seems more sensible to me, and can be different from country of the main offices of the publisher.
A lot of the confusion that new users will face here is not really knowing what any of the fields are really meant for. We’ll be crying out for documentation before long.
I think it is the country of publication. If mentioned I add the city aswel. Like; The Netherlands, Amsterdam. ‘Printed in’ I add to the notes. Zines! Vol. 1 - Books - ctlgs
This is how I approach location.
I believe that to be helpful in identifying a particular copy it should ideally be something that is printed on a book, rather than something that is interpreted or assumed. But that’s not always possible in all cases.
I start by looking at the title page e.g.
Oxford New York, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1991
From which I would record Oxford; New York
On the next page (with all the copyright info) in the same edition the publisher Oxford University Press is listed for Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan.
Adding all those seems unnecessary - but sometimes differences in the publisher’s offices may be a distinguishing feature. I would use Notes if this was the case.
In the cases where things aren’t that clear, I’ll look at other factors, or simply leave Location blank.
Also I tend to favour verbatim data entry, so if the publisher doesn’t think it’s necessary to print “Oxford, England” in the book, I won’t be adding “England”. Even though there are many towns and cities called Oxford around the world, it’s typically obvious what we’re talking about.
This was actually one of the most debated fields on Bookogs — there’s a long thread in the old forum (44 posts over 4 years) that never reached a formal consensus. We’ve somewhat inherited this field but can now make it clear what it is for.
Three interpretations were common, and each has tradeoffs.
- Publisher’s location — the city/country as printed on the title page or copyright page. This aligned with standard library cataloging practice and was the most widely used approach.
- Territory of sale / market — where the book was intended to be sold or distributed.
- Printed in — where the physical book was manufactured.
One idea that came up repeatedly in the old forum was splitting Location into multiple sub-fields — Location of Publisher, Printed In, Manufactured In, Territory of Sale — so the data doesn’t get muddled together. That’s something we could consider if there’s interest. But I do worry about the usefulness of so many fields.
Is there a preferred approach we can standardize on? This could be the first step in documenting the contribution guidelines here.
The printer’s location (ie, where the book is printed) should be covered by the country of the Credit in the ‘Printed by’ field. So I don’t think that’s of much use. I can’t see how a book can be printed in a country that the printer isn’t in… unless they’re a company registered in one country and do printing in another. Even that would make more sense to record as a separate ‘Printed by’ credit - an alias, if we get that sort of functionality.
The publisher’s location ought to be covered by the ‘Published by’ field, although I can see a sense in recording the various offices of the publisher that are often listed, in case it a) matters, or b) helps narrow down a printing date (by comparing printed addresses with known addresses in various years) should anyone be interested in that.
I settled on territory for sale / the market because it’s a lot more simple a value than several addresses of offices (which would be better off in another field, or set of fields, I think), and I’ve encountered situations where a book is published in the UK, but printed in Australia for the Australian market, and where one is printed in Australia for the ‘global’ market (or a market which also includes other select countries). So it clarifies which territory the book is intended to be sold in regardless of where it’s printed or published.
I’ll grant you that it’s not always possible to know what the territories are, in which case I’d leave it blank.
If the most common use is Location of Publisher, then the field could be renamed to that, and then a Territory of Market be added - and data moved over. If that can be scripted, great, but it’ll probably be a manual task - something folks do when they see one.
I’m not sure of the value of Printed In or Manufactured In.
The ‘Printed/ Manufacturing in Country’ has to do with custom / tariff regulations. It’s there to quickly identify where the physical item was made.
I do have some older books with limited credits on the copyright page (for example no typesetting/ printing/ binding/ manufacturing) that still have ‘Printed in…’ on it and I kind of like the idea of being able to add that info here as presented on the item.
On the other hand, I do agree that it’s kind of double trouble to have a ‘Printed by’ credit and a ‘Printed in Country’ credit.
Some quick thoughts:
I have used the publisher’s location, as stated on the title page or elsewhere, as that is the custom in libraries as well as some other databases.
I would like to see existing library cataloging practices respected as much as possible. Book cataloging professionals have already figured out a lot of things, and a lot of bibliophiles are used to these practices.
Territory of sale/market can be difficult as those are not always countries, but can also be language-based areas, often not printed on the book.
Printed in can come in handy sometimes when differentiating printings, and could be useful as an additional field. IIRC there are cases where a printer has moved, and the location/address is different.
Tell me about it… Still remember being called an idiot for trying to defend the “Publisher’s location” option, and accused of intentionally sabotaging the database for using it. 
I’ll say that if the Location field is definitively decided to be the location/s of the publisher offices it’s really not necessary at all to have it in the Book page’s list of Editions! Whereas market/territory would be, although not terrifically important.
Haha, my thoughts are exactly the opposite, I’d prefer info directly from the book displayed. But maybe I’m traumatized by the Country field in Discogs. 
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Just to clarify, I meant I don’t think it’s worth showing that field as a column in the table of Editions on the Book page. I can’t see what showing the first of a possible list of several office addresses would be in identifying which row you might want to click, when the publisher is there… but I’m sure my use case is quite specific, and don’t really know how others want to use the site! 
Usually just the city, not the whole address. 
Same! And it’s good to have as many users as possible to voice their views, even if there are different opinions. How boring it would be if everyone always agreed with each other?
So I put in just the city without the country, as long the latter is not explicitly mentioned?
Like the Swiss publishing house Diogenes usually only has ‘Zürich’ mentioned on the copyright page.
Yeah, usually it’s entered as it is printed on the book.
While I can see some benefits in being more specific, it also brings in a whole new set of issues, such as cities being in different countries, counties, etc. depending on the era; and countries that no longer exist. Books have been around for a long time.
But there are ways of doing everything. If others want to enter more than what is on the book, then just need to agree on some guidelines.
The problem I’m having with using the field as a publisher’s location is understanding what it actually means. What location? What’s information is it supposed to be communicating/recording?
There are very often many locations in different countries printed, and sometimes a head office address too. Which do you pick, and most importantly, why that one? And why only a city? What if the city has a name that’s the same as you can find in another country? What’s it telling you when you’re being imprecise? And why so imprecise in any case? Why not imprecise in another way, like only country? Or city and country. The whole notion of putting something in that field to represent publisher location seem so meaninglessly arbitrary unless it’s everything that’s printed.
Just what is it for???
These is all adapted from the library standards:
-
you can enter just one
- if one is typographically more prominent: use that
- if there is no typographical distinction, use the place name that appears first
- if there is no typographical distinction and the places do not appear in sequence, use the place that is most important to users of the catalogue
-
you can enter them all
Example:
Berlin ; Köln ; Frankfurt am Main
- you can enter some and indicate with [etc.] that some have been omitted
Example:
London ; New York ; Paris [etc.]
For me, 2 and 3 are a lot simpler than 1.
- If it is considered necessary for identifying a unique edition/printing, a state, a county, or similar can be added
Examples:
Cambridge, MA
Cambridge [England]
(Square brackets are used for information that is not on the book.)