In many areas of Science, literature.... just all of academia, all but the most basic areas are constantly undergoing large amounts of change (even F=ma is not safe... now apparantly it's F=((|m-b|+(m-b))/2)ma+(|b-m|+(b-m))mb... or something like that... didn't take an awful lot of notice - may need a bit of correction)... and a lot of the time it can even be predicted, even if an overhaul of science doesn't occur there is always new research that books can benefit from, and that that will most often be the cause for a new edition... So why not have read-by dates to make sure that shops don't sell redundant or inaccurate books... and people don't buy them... how about it?-- Ossalisc, Oct 03 2003 welcome. not sure about books. but magazine articles certainly. + 1-- po, Oct 03 2003 Baked. Well not "Read-by" dates per say, more like "Born-on" dates. Look for the earliest copyright date on one of the first pages.-- Worldgineer, Oct 03 2003 Just becasue it's outdated doesn't mean it can't be good. Also, I have a hard time imagining how to accurately dertemine a good expiration date.
However I do think it would be a good idea to prominently display the date when the book was written rather than hide it in roman numerals on the copyright page. That way the average reader will have that bit of context in mind while reading the book.
I remember reading a novel that was set in the near future in relation to when the book was writen, but was in the fairly recent past from when I was reading it. A major part of the plot involved cold war politics, but the cold war had ended before the date that the story supposedly happened. At first I thought the books was historical fiction, but things just weren't lining up with any historical events I knew about. I finally figured it out when I went and looked at the copyright date. The book really was indended to be read by someone before the date that the story took place, so in this case an expiration date could have worked, but once I knew that it was set in the past's future, I probably enjoyed the book almost as much (maybe even more because I didn't have to worry as much about any of the event actually taking place).-- scad mientist, Oct 03 2003 One problem with "born on" date is that Volumes 1-3 of Donald Knuth's _Fundamentals of Computer Programming_, written in 1969, are far more useful today than a lot of books written in 2000.-- supercat, Oct 03 2003 Scan: 1984 or 2001 perhaps?-- supercat, Oct 03 2003 okay... hrmmm (been offline for two weeks...) I don't see any real problems with my idea... and Jutta... if the evidence and assuptions with which the ideas were assembled are proved to be incorrect (or will become redundant in the face of FACTS as opposed to assumptions and deductive logic)... so if you can forsee a date when your insight will be changed than why not tell people about it-- Ossalisc, Oct 21 2003 Day old newspapers wrap fish.
A SELL BY DATE would WORK FOR book shops. SHOULD allow shop to return if unsold.-- popbottle, Nov 07 2014 This is a good idea apart from its being bollocks.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 08 2014 Any out-of-date book that was influential in its time immediately becomes an important historical resource; it helps us to understand such important questions as "WTF were they *thinking*?"-- pertinax, Nov 09 2014 random, halfbakery