264 (Place, publisher, and date)
Take the place, publisher, and date of publication from the same source as the title proper, in most cases, then, the title page.
If the information is not on the title page, take it from elsewhere on the book, e.g. the verso or the cover. Sometimes this information is only on the last page of the publication, which is called the colophon.
Record the place of publication, the name of the publisher, and the date(s) of publication according to the following pattern:
| 264 | 1 | ‡a <Place of publication> : ‡b <Name of publisher>, ‡c <date of publication> |
The punctuation and subfield are provided in the template. If information is added in brackets, use separate pairs of brackets for each subfield. If the 264 field ends with a date, end the field with a period. If the 264 field ends with another mark of punctuation (bracket, parentheses, hyphen) do not add a period at the end of the field.
If there is more than one place of publication, transcribe the first named only. If there is more than one publisher, transcribe the first named only. Transcribe place and publisher name as you find it on the resource.
Transcribe the place of publication and the name of the publisher as they appear on your source. Transcribe any abbreviations if they appear, but do not convert any spelled-out word to an abbreviation. Use the capitalization as found and transcribe any errors as found. Do not add [sic] when transcribing an error found on the source.
If there is no place of publication found on the item, check with your supervisor and see if an inferred place of publication can be provided. If so, enter the inferred place of publication in brackets in 264 ‡a. If an inferred place of publication cannot be identified, then use [Place of publication not identified].
If there is no publisher named on the item, enter [publisher not identified] in ‡b.
Do not transcribe the name of the distributor or printer in ‡b. If there is no identifiable publisher and a distributor or printer are named, check with your supervisor.
If there is no publication date, and there is a copyright date, generally use the date named in the copyright in brackets, without the "c." Optionally, add a second 264 _4 with the copyright symbol and date in ‡c. In 264 _4, ‡a and ‡b are never used, and there is no period at the end of the field.
RDA Date Examples Table
Lack of publication date is sometimes a problem with pamphlets and other hidden collections material. RDA options for recording dates of publication, distribution, etc. in the absence of an explicit publication date differ from the AACR2 options. The following table lists RDA options.
| Date information from item | 264 ‡c |
| 2014 | 2014. |
| c2011 | [2011] |
| recently published; received for cataloging in 2013 | [2013?] |
| title page has May 2002; no other dates on the item | May 2002. |
| refers to events that took place in 2001 and appears to have been published around that time | [approximately 2001] |
| published during the academic year 1985-1986 | [1985 or 1986] |
| ongoing multipart, part 1 published 1985, part 2 published 1986, other parts not yet published | 1985- |
| part 1 published 1970, part 2 published 1979, set is complete | 1970-1979. |
| published sometime in the 1970's | [between 1970 and 1979?] <do not use [197-]> |
| probably published in the early 20th century | [between 1900 and 1930?] |
| published in the 19th century | [between 1801 and 1900?] <do not use [19--?]> |
| a working paper based on a master's thesis; MA granted 1996 | [not before 1996] |
| a pamphlet predicting the collapse of the Soviet regime shortly before it collapsed | [not after 1989] |
RDA 264 Field Examples
Example. Title page: New York, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Toronto. New-Tech Inc. 1992
| 264 | 1 | ‡a New York : ‡b New-Tech Inc., ‡c 1992. |
Example. When transcribing the publisher name, include the entire hierarchy.
| 264 | 1 | ‡a [Yogyakarta] : ‡b Kerjasama Komunitas Penyair Lilin, Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta [dan] Buku Litera Yogyakarta, ‡c 2013. |
Example. Transcribe the entire publisher statement. Although only one publisher is mandatory, if two publishers are connected grammatically, transcribe both in a single ‡b.
| 264 | 1 | ‡a New Delhi : ‡b Published by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage and Aryan Books International, ‡c 2013. |
Example. No statement on title page, verso, cover or colophon. Author of pamphlet: Thomas Frost. On the page preceding the title page: ©2014 by Thomas Frost, 120 High St., New Haven, CT 06520. When supplying information in brackets, generally do not use abbreviations.
| 264 | 1 | ‡a [New Haven, Connecticut] : ‡b Thomas Frost, ‡c [2014] | |
| 264 | 4 | ‡c ©2014 <optional> |
Example. If the publication is a non-Gregorian date, transcribe it as found but provide the Gregorian date in brackets. Note that an inferred place of publication is not limited to a municipality. If the city is not known, the state or even the country is a possibility. This situation is more likely to occur in international collections projects.
| 264 | 1 | ‡a [California?] : ‡b [publisher not identified], ‡c 1392 [2013] |
Example. If the publisher cannot be identified, but the distributor or printer is given, a second 264 field is made with a distributor or printer second indicator. For this type of situation, consult with your supervisor. In this example, the place of publication and date of publication were given, but not the publisher name. However, the printer name (as well as the location and date of printing) were on the item and were transcribed in a second 264 field (note the different indicator for the printer 264).
| 264 | 1 | ‡a Guadalajara, Jal. : ‡b [publisher not identified], ‡c 2013. | |
| 264 | 3 | ‡a Guadalajara, Jalisco : ‡b Castro Impresores, ‡c 2013. |
Example. Use "place of publication not identified" as a last resort. In the following example, the 008 was coded for the Marshall Islands (xe), but 264 says the place is not identified.
| 264 | 1 | ‡a [Place of publication not identified] : ‡b [CreateSpace], ‡c [2013] |
264 would be better as:
| 264 | 1 | ‡a [Marshall Islands?] : ‡b [CreateSpace], ‡c [2013] |
Note that the subfields get separate sets of brackets.