Greetings and a Happy New Year to all. 

To move us back to active mode, in this message I propose the text of a new workplan for 2004/2005.  I suggest we allot through end of day 2005-01-10 for discussion, and within a few days of the 10th I'll plan to issue a final verison of the plan, and will then work to update the DCMI Date WG web page. 

DCMI Date WG workplan 2004/2005 :  Since we did not close any items from our previous 2003/2004 workplan, and have received additional work items from the Usage Board, namely:
1) A proposal for changing the wording of the Comment for the Date element to explicitly acknowledge ranges
2) A proposal for a new encoding scheme for ISO 8601

my thought is to integrate these into the proposed DCMI Date WG workplan 2004/2005.  I will also suggest that these items receive our immediate attention.

So here is a draft of a proposed DCMI Date WG workplan 2004/2005:
***
DCMI Date WG workplan 2004/2005:
        1. Respond to a DCMI Usage Board proposal to change the wording of the Comment for the Dublin Core Date element to explicitly acknowledge ranges
        2. Consider potential additional schemes for DC Date and/or DC Coverage: 
*       ISO 8601 [DC-Lib] -- Note: DCMI Date WG will respond to a proposal before the DCMI Usage Board
*       Any additional schemes that arise from other work items 
        3. Consider potential additional refinements for DC Date: 
*       Date captured [DC-Lib] 
        4. Investigate options to provide for the interoperable representation of commonly-recorded dates which cannot be satisfactorily represented using ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times, including the following categories of dates: 
*       B.C.E. dates [DC-Lib; DC CLD WG] 
*       Questionable dates [DC-Lib] 
*       Approximate dates [DC-Lib] 
*       Open-ended date ranges [DC CLD WG] 
*       Non-Gregorian dates 
*       Large dates (e.g., geologic periods, astronomical time) 
References:
*       DC-LIB: DC-Library Application Profile <http://www.dublincore.org/documents/library-application-profile/> (DC-Lib) 
*       DC CLD WG: DCMI Collection Description Working Group <http://www.dublincore.org/groups/collections/> 
***
Comments are most welcome.  

(N.B. I include beneath my signature the text of the DCMI Date WG workplan 2003/2004 (also available from: http://www.dublincore.org/groups/date/) for reference.)

Cheers,

Eric

> Eric Childress
> Consulting Project Manager
> OCLC Research {http://www.oclc.org/research}
> OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
> 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, OH 43017 USA
> US: (800) 848-5878 or (614) 764-6000
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> 
DCMI Date WG workplan 2003/2004:
        Investigate options to provide for the interoperable representation of commonly-recorded dates which cannot be satisfactorily represented using ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times, including the following categories of dates: 
*       B.C.E. dates [DC-Lib; DC CLD WG] 
*       Questionable dates [DC-Lib] 
*       Approximate dates [DC-Lib] 
*       Open-ended date ranges [DC CLD WG] 
*       Non-Gregorian dates 
*       Large dates (e.g., geologic periods, astronomical time) 
        Consider potential additional refinements for DC Date: 
*       Date captured [DC-Lib] 
        Consider potential additional schemes for DC Date and/or DC Coverage: 
*       ISO 8601 [DC-Lib] 
*       Any additional schemes that arise from work item one 
References:
*       DC-LIB: DC-Library Application Profile <http://www.dublincore.org/documents/library-application-profile/> (DC-Lib) 
*       DC CLD WG: DCMI Collection Description Working Group <http://www.dublincore.org/groups/collections/>