On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Robin Martherus wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I have been lurking on this list for about a year now and would like to get
> some input from you regarding ISO8601. My company wants to use the Dublin
> Core tags in one of our products. We would also like to use ISO8601 for
> storing dates in the DC.date tag as well as other date related fields but
> find the profile is lacking in the year area because it is limited to the
> years from 0000 to 9999.
>
> I know that Misha has already mentioned that this is a shortcoming and that
> those of us who need years outside of that range should use a diferent
> standard.
>
> What I would like to hear from you is what you recommend we use. We have
> been discussing the possiblity of using a modified ISO8601 by not limiting
> the year to 4 digits but using as many digits as are needed to represent
> the year. This should not become a problem while parsing because the
> various date/time elements already have delimiters seperating them.
>
> This would allow archeologists, peleontologists, geologists, etc to use the
> standard for recording dates well before 0000. Even librarians have works
> written by Plato and others well before the year 0000.
>
> If ISO8601 is not the solution for us what should we use?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Robin Martherus
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Robin Martherus [log in to unmask]
> Verano, Inc. phone 415/237-0207
> 411 Clyde Avenue fax 415/237-0211
> Mountain View, CA 94043
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
The MARC formats have a convention for specifying B.C. and earlier dates.
The information is recorded in field 045 (Time Period of Content) and is
used in bibliographic records to indicate a time period associated with
an item. A brief description is at the following URL:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdnumb.html#mrcb045
The table referred to in the description uses an alphanumeric code to
refer to a time period when it is desirable to use a code rather than text
(which may facilitate searching in some systems). When using non-coded
date information (probably more of interest for Dublin Core application),
it uses a code for the era ("c" for B.C., "d" for A.D.) followed by a
four-digit number with unused positions containing 0's. Example:
221 B.C. is c0221
960 A.D. is d0960
Pre-9999 B.C. dates are also covered; they use a separate data element
(subfield) that identifies them as pre-9999 and consists of as many
characters as are needed.
Dates in another calendar are converted to the Gregorian, although they
are recorded as they appear is elsewhere in the record.
Rebecca
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^ Rebecca S. Guenther ^^
^^ Senior MARC Standards Specialist ^^
^^ Network Development and MARC Standards Office ^^
^^ Library of Congress ^^
^^ Washington, DC 20540-4020 ^^
^^ (202) 707-5092 (voice) (202) 707-0115 (FAX) ^^
^^ [log in to unmask] ^^
^^ ^^
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