IAR field - Date
Mandatory: YES
Repeatable: NO
The date on which the resource was created or published. See also Date modified.
Examples
Date: 19991202 Published on 2nd December 1999
Date: 20000106 Presented to Ministers on 6th January 2000
Date: 200306-- Due for publication June 2003
For a database created in 1997
Date: 1997
For data gathered for the 1995 census:
Date: 1995 Data gathered during 3-5th June 1995
Notes
The unfamiliar format for the date is necessary to allow accurate searching, and to make it clear which is the year, month or day. The format is YYYYMMDD, where YYYY is the year, MM is the month and DD the day. Putting the date in a more easily recognised form as well makes the record more user friendly, however, the standard format must appear first.
Date could mean:
- Subject / Topic Relationship to other resources
- Date of creation of intellectual content
- Date resource became available in present form internally
- Date resource was formally published
- Date resource was or will be made available
- Date resource became valid
- Acquisition or accession date
- Dates during which data was gathered
It may be useful to make it clear which of these you are referring to.
Historical documents: e.g. a document on women in the civil service in the 18th century, put the date published in the DATE field, the 18th century in the SUBJECT field.
Standards
ISO 8601:1988, ANSI X3.30, W3C