Keeping Track of Different Editions
Posted by Vincent Cheung on August 2, 2005There is a question about how to keep track of the different editions of my books, since they are available on different formats, and some have undergone major revisions. The person also asked about the meaning of the "last modified" dates listed under all the books and articles at the RMI site where they are distributed.
This is how it works:
Using my Systematic Theology as an example, the last major revision of the book is listed on the copyright page, and also in the file name. So if the copyright says only "2001" and the file name is without a year (theology.pdf), this means that the book was first published in 2001 and has received no major revision since then.
But in this case, the copyright page says "2001, 2003" and the file name is "theology2003," which means that a major revision occurred in 2003.
I have made it a policy to never make more than one major revision to a book within the same year, so that the final year number listed on the copyright page will always accurately function as the version number of the book.
Now, the "last modified" date says "02/28/2005," which is way after 2003. This date indicates the last time that I made a minor change to the text, such as correcting a typo.