I'm not sure how others would handle this, but if you take the example below we publish full date information on our website and xml feeds in this example as 'published 24 January 1810', this is just one of the many varieties of dates we have. I get the feeling that in order to have a unified date field we'd have to have two database fields, an 'ISO' type one and a full text version which isn't satisfactory from a database point of view.
http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?obj=11910
Sarah's suggestion of many fields for a date could be tied together in any data extract for reuse online.
Tony
Government Art Collection
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Saunders
Sent: 19 December 2013 12:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Tate artists
Hello Janet,
Thanks for this comment. I was having a conversation just yesterday with a software provider who said that people names are one of the most difficult areas to deal with in terms of identifying people exactly and this is exactly what you are saying.
I like the idea of having separate fields for year, month day, but the question is how this is then read when you try to export to embedded XMP fields or into date formatted fields. Does that happen seamlessly?
Sarah
On 13 Dec 2013, at 12:08, J DAVIS wrote:
> Great work, Richard!
>
> Sarah,
> In projects I've worked on in the past, I came to the conclusion that dates needed to have a field each for year, month & day, especially when the dates could range from contemporary to prehistoric (and earliest and latest so approximate dates could be used rather than leaving out uncertain information). It worked - and the data has been exchanged or re-used.
> When setting up the database for the Parks & Gardens UK biographical information, we included fields for alternative names to allow for married names, inherited titles, nicknames (a bit of a thing with historical horticultural folk) etc. It was particularly important when recording families where the same first name was used liberally so, for example, not only fathers and sons shared it but also cousins, occasionally brothers - and they often lived in the same town, sometimes the same house, and had the same type of occupation. We had different rules for living people.
>
> I know I don't want my exact date of birth or place I live to be displayed in catalogues online - although I would, of course, be happy for those to be displayed after I've died. I assume other people would have the same preference. Since my first and last names are common, I feel the need at times for a personal URI & mechanism by which more detailed information can be added to databases after my death and not all immediately after.
>
>
> Janet
>
> Janet E Davis
>
>
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