OSU Library Metadata: A Guideline to Best Practices: Date Original

This site provides guidelines for OSU's local implementation of CDP Dublin Core Metadata Best Practices Version 2.1.1

Date Original

Label: Date Original
Maps to Dublin Core Element Name: dateOriginal
Maps to MARC field (in World Cat): 264
Mandatory: Yes, if applicable
May also choose to use the date field with the following refinements in place of Date.Original if
the refinements are more appropriate
Repeatable: Yes
Qualifiers:
Refinements:

Refinement Name	Refinement Label	Definition
created	Created	Date of creation of the resource
valid	Valid	Date(often a range of validity of a resource
available	Available	Date (often a range) that the resource will become or did become available
issued	Issued	Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource
modified	Modified	Date on which the resource was changed

Schemes: ISO 8601 (W3C-DTF)

Dublin Core Definition: Date Original

None.

Comment/Context: Date Original

Creation or modification dates for the original resource from which the digital object was derived or created.

Input Guidelines: Date Original

1. A resource may have several dates associated with it, including: creation date, copyright date, revision date, edition date, modification date, etc. Use separate Date Original elements to enter multiple dates or clearly separate each entry by a semicolon followed by a space (; ) within an element.

Year: YYYY (“1897” for the year 1897))
Year and month: YYYY-MM (“1897-07” for July 1897))
Complete date: YYYY-MM-DD (“1897-07-16” for July 16, 1897)

2. Enter dates in the form “YYYY-MM-DD” in accordance with the W3C Date Time Format (W3CDTF) encoding scheme. Use a single hyphen to separate the year, month, and date components:

Enter dates for different purposes in separate Date Original elements; i.e., date resource created and date modified.

Notes:

Enter dates pertaining to the digitized version of the resource under the Date Digital element.
Include other date information about the original resource in the Description or Source elements as appropriate

Date Data Entry Rules for CONTENTdm
Date Original should be set up as a Text field [displayed and searchable in web view] - Uses
only numbers and dashes to express dates, allowing CONTENTdm to store and search the dates
as precise data. Enter a date as specifically as possible.
Year: YYYY ("1897" for the year 1897)
Month and year: YYYY-MM ("1897-07" for July 1897)
Complete date: YYYY-MM-DD ("1897-07-16" for July 16, 1897)

If you do not know the date, make an educated guess, recording the date as a "circa" date. If
you can only get as close as a specific decade or date range, you may use ranges. Do not use
question marks; the circa indicates that the date is approximate. Examples:
circa 1952
circa 1920s
circa 1915-1918

If you cannot even guess at a date range, at a minimum enter a portion of a century using early,
late or mid-. Examples:
Early 20th century
Late 19th century
Mid-17th century

Date Original2

The Date Original2 field is used solely in CONTENTdm and is suppressed from display in
web view. This field is hidden from the public, but will be made searchable in the “field
properties” found within the CONTENTdm administrative module.

Date Original2 uses numbers and dashes along with letters and words to more precisely express
uncertainty. It is still very important to be consistent when entering this information.

Input guidelines:
Follow the YYYY-MM-DD pattern of data entry, using dashes to indicate ranges.

Notes:

Examples: Date Original/Date Original2

The following chart demonstrates how to enter Date Original2 based on how dates are entered in the Date Original Text field:

Date Style	Date Original Field	Date Original2 Field
Single Year Date Range	YYYY 1952 1824 YYYY-YYYY 1952-1960 1824-1825	YYYY 1952 1824 YYYY-YYYY 1952-1960 1824-1825
Approximate Single Year	Circa YYYY Circa 1952 Circa 1824	Enter a 10-year range (5 years earlier and 5 years later) around the guessed date 1947-1957 1819-1829
Approximate Date range Decade	Circa YYYY-YYYY Circa 1952-1960 Circa 1824-1825 YYYYs 1960s 1810s	YYYY 1952-1960 1824-1825 Enter the beginning and ending years of the decade 1960-1969 1810-1819
Approximate decade Approximate range of decades	Circa YYYYs Circa 1960s Circa 1810s YYYYs-YYYYs 1950s-1960s 1820s-1840s	Enter the beginning and ending years of the decade 1960-1969 1810-1819 Enter the beginning and ending years of those decades 1950-1969 1820-1949

Date Style

Date Original Field

Date Original2 Field

Single Year

Date Range

YYYY

1952

1824

YYYY-YYYY

1952-1960

1824-1825

YYYY

1952

1824

YYYY-YYYY

1952-1960

1824-1825

Approximate Single Year

Circa YYYY

Circa 1952

Circa 1824

Enter a 10-year range (5 years earlier and 5 years later) around the guessed date

1947-1957

1819-1829

Approximate Date range

Decade

Circa YYYY-YYYY

Circa 1952-1960

Circa 1824-1825

YYYYs

1960s

1810s

YYYY

1952-1960

1824-1825

Enter the beginning and ending years of the decade

1960-1969

1810-1819

Approximate decade

Approximate range of decades

Circa YYYYs

Circa 1960s

Circa 1810s

YYYYs-YYYYs

1950s-1960s

1820s-1840s

Enter the beginning and ending years of the decade

1960-1969

1810-1819

Enter the beginning and ending years of those decades

1950-1969

1820-1949