[DCRM-L] Are unique artists' books "published"?

[R. Arvid Nelsen]

This has cropped up as a question for us and we have altered our practice.  I used to think of them as published as well and treated them like a book, with a complete 260 field.  Since then, however, after much discussio with out curator, we now treat them as unpublished artworks, with a date in the subfield c of the 260 but no publuication information.
 
Where I still have troubled conceptually, however, is with limited editions.  Are a books in an edition of five artists books that are signed and lacking an imprint to be treated as published or not?  Does duplication make something "published."  And what about situations where you know there is only one but the artist has included a printed imprint?  Does that make it published?
 
When the draft AACR3 was being reviewed (and criticized) I mentioned these questions and asked for a better defition of "published" materials, but I don't think my question was heard.
 
Arvid Nelsen
 
R. Arvid Nelsen
Coord. of Technical Services/Original Cataloger/Classical Studies Librarian
University of California, San Diego
Mandeville Special Collections Library
9500 Gilman Drive, 0175S
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
Phone: 858-534-6766
Fax: 858-534-5950
 


>>> robert_maxwell at byu.edu 03/06/07 10:23AM >>>

Forwarding this for Ryan--I'm not sure why it didn't go through the first time.
 

Robert L. Maxwell

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Are unique artists' books "published"?Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:34:39 -0800From: Ryan Hildebrand <hildebrj at uci.edu>To: DCRM Revision Group List <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>

I have a few philosophical questions for those of you who catalog unique (1 of 1) artists' books. Do you treat them as published works? In particular, how do you formulate field 260, and why do you do it this way? 
In the strange territory of artists' books what constitutes publication? 
(FYI, I am inclined to regard them as published, but just barely.)
-----
Ryan Hildebrand, Special Collections and Archives Cataloger 
UCI Libraries, P.O. Box 19557, University of California, Irvine, CA 92623-9557 
Telephone: (949) 824-2263 | Fax: (949) 824-2472 
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