What's the difference between the csl variables original-date and available-date?

pureimagination
edited 6 days ago
https://docs.citationstyles.org/en/v1.0.2/specification.html#date-variables

"available-date: Date the item was initially available (e.g. the online publication date of a journal article before its formal publication date; the date a treaty was made available for signing)"

"original-date: Issue date of the original version"

I don't get the difference. Can someone explain it with an example?

E.g. there is a preprint (2023) which is later published in a journal (2024). If I want to cite the journal article I use 2024 as date and 2023 as available-date.

But when do I use original-date? Is this for e.g. for republished items like Shakespeare? But then why are there two variables? One would be sufficient.
  • adamsmith
    Yes, original.date is for reprints, translations and the like. You need to distinguish the two for accurate citations. E.g., there are journal articles with online first dates and there are very occasional reprints and translations in journals. The two dates are cited very differently, so can't be the same variable. In practice, available date isn't currently used much by styles. It was introduced for the flexibility.
  • pureimagination
    Just to get it correctly. An available-date is used for the date an item has already been unofficially published (like a journal article based on a preprint or research result published on a server/website). The item can possibly be slightly different in content and structure after editing.

    An original-date is for items that had been officially published by an editor before and were just reprinted or translated. The item is identical to the original item in content and structure.

    But if I have a 2nd edition, How should I categorize the date of the 1st edition?

    Your're german right? Do you have clear German translations? I thought of
    original-date= "Datum der Originalfassung"
    available-date= "Datum der Erstveröffentlichung"
  • bwiernik
    If it’s a date that you would expect to show up in the citation, use original-date. available-date is primarily used in legal citations of treaties (the date the treaty is available for signing). You could use available-date for something like the date an article appeared online before its final publication date was assigned, but those dates are not usually included in citations.

    I would not include any date related to the first edition of the book in a citation to the second edition.
  • adamsmith
    yes, agree w bwiernik. As for translations:
    Datum der Orginalfassung is right, but available date (like several CSL variables, is a bit more flexible and can, e.g., also mean "Datum der Unterzeichnung".
    We have seen some citation styles that did want online-first dates distinguished for journal articles, so we included this as an example. I'm afraid I don't know how I'd call that in German. Erstveröffentlichung ist correct in the literal sense, but I've not seen online first translated as such.
  • pureimagination
    I want to create my own citation style and for me the date of the first edition is important. But I only want to include this information if there is a appropriate csl variable because I don't want any imported (or exported) entries to be displayed wrong due to a misunderstanding on my part. I also want to combine the citation style with clear instructions for every variable.That's why I'm asking so specific.

    But I see, these are just optional/flexible variables for very specific citation guides. If someone enters some dates which I want to display, these entries would possibly cause wrong citations in other styles.
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