Item — HN Reader

That feels weird.

I only check a book's date when I'm trying to find out which edition I'm holding in my hands. It happens about once or twice times a year that I want to know that (admittedly more often in the last year since I was citing books in an academic setting).

Otherwise some imprecise idea about the publication date (Which decade? Possibly even less granular) might be interesting, but it's usually obvious from the layout, typesetting and so on.

I've really never wanted to know if a book was printed in 2008 or 2011, just to put the content into context.

> I've really never wanted to know if a book was printed in 2008 or 2011, just to put the content into context.

I have. I'm quite interested in financial crash literature and the difference in context between a 2008 perspective (which may be interesting in its own way) and 2011 looking back at 2008 is pretty large.

Edit to add:

That isn't to say the article is wrong, I think well organised permanent content can probably live well without a date on it. There are definitely items of content for which a date is important but for others I can easily believe it would detract.