Date

Input guidelines:

General guidelines.

• Recommended best practice for encoding the date value is defined in a profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF] and follows the YYYY-MM-DD format.
• Although rarely used, the Portal will support the format "date and time" which represents a specified time of a specified day. When use is made of the calendar date the representation is: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss  (where the capital letter T is used to separate the date and time components).  For example, 2005-04-01T13:01:02 represents one minute and two seconds after one o'clock in the afternoon of April 1, 2005.
• Always enter a value for digital creation date.  In some cases, this process may be automated at the time the digital file is ingested into the Portal.
• If at all possible, enter a value for original resource creation date.  It may be a single date or a range of dates.  If no original resource creation date can be found, leave the field blank.
• When the resource being described is a collection, a date range can be used to describe the collective creation date range of all the resources which make up the collection.

Formulating the date.

• Use a single hyphen to separate the year, month, and date components, and observe the following general rules for different date types:
  • If only the year is known, enter in the form YYYY.  For example, 2003.
  • If only the year and month are known, enter in the form YYYY-MM.  For example, use 2003-01 for January 2003.
  • If year, month, and day are known, enter in the form YYYY-MM-DD.  For example, use 2003-01-08 for January 8, 2003.
• For a range of dates, enter the dates on the same line, separating them with a space, hyphen, space as:  YYYY-MM-DD - YYYY-MM-DD, e.g.
  use 1998 - 2003 for the years 1998 to 2003
  use 1970-10-08 - 1976-06-30 for the dates October 20, 1970 to June 30, 1976
• For a range of dates in which either the start or end dates are unknown, use a blank for the unknown portion of the date. 
  • When the start date is known, but the end date is unknown or ongoing, use the format YYYY -   
    For example, use 1998 -  for a date range beginning in 1998.
    Use 1976-06-30 -  for a date range beginning June 30, 1976.
  • When the start date is unknown, but the end date is known, use the format - YYYY
    For example, use - 2004 for a date range ending in 2004.
    Use - 2005-03-30 for a date range ending March 30, 2005.
• If the date or range is approximate, qualify it with the abbreviation for circa, e.g.
  c.1919  for "around the year 1919"
  c.1895 - 1900  for "around the years 1895 to 1900"
  c.1868-12 - 1892-05 for "the approximate dates December 1868 to May 1892"
• If the original resource creation date is derived from some source other than the resource itself, enclose the date in square brackets, e.g.
  [1935]
  [1972-11-04]
  [c.1939-1945]
  [ - 1900]

Related element.

• To express the time period(s), date, or date range associated with the intellectual content of the resource, use the Coverage element.  For example, a book published in 1976 that is about Texas history from first statehood to 1964 would have an original resource creation date of 1976, but a coverage date range of 1846 - 1964.

Examples:

For a photograph taken with a digital camera on April 22, 2004.
Original Resource Creation Date:  2004-04-22
Digital Creation Date:  2004-04-22

For a photograph taken with a film camera on December 25, 1995 and scanned to a digital file on September 22, 2003.
Original Resource Creation Date:  1995-12-25
Digital Creation Date:  2003-09-22

For a document created in Microsoft Word format September 11, 2001 and converted to a PDF file sometime in 2002.
Original Resource Creation Date:  2001-09-11
Digital Creation Date:  2002

For a piece of furniture made around 1875 (according to its bill of sale) and photographed with a digital camera in April 2005.
Original Resource Creation Date:  [c.1875]
Digital Creation Date:  2005-04

For a hand-drawn map created sometime during the Civil War (according to a descendant of the cartographer) and scanned on January 15, 2003.
Original Resource Creation Date:  [c.1860 - 1864]
Digital Creation Date:  2003-01-15

For a historic photograph about which no creation date is known, scanned to a digital file sometime in  February, 1995.
Original Resource Creation Date:
Digital Creation Date:  1995-02

For a  book published in 1901 and scanned in August 2004.
Original Resource Creation Date:  1901
Digital Creation Date:  2004-08

For a collection of carved wooden duck decoys, made from 1910 to 1939 (each labeled with the maker's initials and creation date) and photographed with a digital camera on April 12, 2005.
Original Resource Creation Date:  1910 - 1939
Digital Creation Date:  2005-04-12

For a  production drawing stamped "discontinued 1964" and scanned January 31, 2003.
Original Resource Creation Date:   - 1964
Digital Creation Date:  2003-01-31