10 Date

The date identifies when a resource was originally created. This can be a specific day, a month and a year, a year, or a range of years.

Question to Consider When Determining Date

• What is it that I am creating metadata for? For example, are you creating metadata for a digital file that represents a physical item or are you creating metadata for the physical item?
• Is the year given by the creator or somewhere on the text?
• If there is no date, how do you plan to indicate that? If you suspect that a resource was created at a particular time, do you want to record that date and if so, how do you plan to indicate that the date is given by you or the recordkeeper?
• When might it be useful to record the period of time that a resource was created?

Date Examples

• The day a photo was taken or a letter was written
• The day a digital file was created or published
• The year a high school yearbook is documenting
• The year or day that someone was born