n.an expression identifying a time periodBearman 1989b, 291Instead of using names as an access point, archivists would be wise to exploit an attribute of events that can be represented uniformly by indexers and users: when they took place. Archivists should pay greater attention to chronological access, both to events authority files that use date ranges and to records that use named time periods.Czeck 1998, 435Chronological terms in collection information almost exclusively delineate the date range for the whole collection and the date range that includes the bulk of the collection, and these dates tended to have a high representation rate.Graedel 1998, 130Date(s) List date range (earliest to most recent publication date) of the materials. This is one of the more important searching categories for researchers, so try your best to locate date(s).Symonds 2008, 274–275This section also defines and describes the standard date ranges applied to postcards that did not have an exact printing or mailing date, lists permissions and reproductions information, and provides links to related regional collections.Beattie 2009, 83–84Most diaries held in Canadian archives, including the ones examined in this article, receive similar levels of description, which usually include a title based on the name of the creator; the date range in which the records were created; the physical extent and format of the records; a relatively brief biographical sketch that includes when and where the creator of the records was born and resided and her or his education, occupation, and important activities and relationships; a line about when and how the records came to the archives; and a scope and content note that often is little more than a list of the materials making up the fonds.Hamill 2013, 73When the specific date of a photograph is not obtainable, a month, year, or date range can be an acceptable option.van Hooland and Verborgh 2014, 83Fortunately, you can make use of tools which will convert any date to a standardized date range consisting of a beginning and an end date.Dunham 2015, 12To format dates: ¶ • Single Year: All materials fall within one year (for example “1965”) ¶ • Single Day: All materials fall within a certain day. Follow a year-month-day pattern (for example, “1906 March 17”) ¶ • Date Ranges: Earliest and latest dates of the materials (for example, “1849–1851” or “1920 January–1955 June 20”).Cocciolo 2016b, 75Two curators and a museum executive mailboxes were selected for appraisal because the mailbox owners occupied key roles central to the mission of the institution. The mailboxes do not encompass the entire time span that the individuals worked at the museum but rather what had been captured and saved by the IT department: ¶ • Museum Executive: Mailbox date range from January 2010 to May 2010.Berdini et al. 2018, 14If known, processors should note when and how files were transferred while in the creator’s custody as well as during archival accessioning, and note if Created dates were affected during any transfer. We also recommend using last Modified dates in the Scope and Content note to provide a more reliable date range for description.Carmicheal 2019, 39If the collection covers one date range, but a large percentage of the records cover a narrower period within that date range (if they “bulk up” in one period), indicate that with bulk dates.DCMI 2020Term name: Date. Date may be used to express temporal information at any level of granularity. Recommended practice is to express the date, date/time, or period of time according to ISO 8601-1 [ISO 8601-1] or a published profile of the ISO standard, such as the W3C Note on Date and Time Formats [W3CDTF] or the Extended Date/Time Format Specification [EDTF]. If the full date is unknown, month and year (YYYY-MM) or just year (YYYY) may be used. Date ranges may be specified using ISO 8601 period of time specification in which start and end dates are separated by a ‘/’ (slash) character. Either the start or end date may be missing.Davis and Gattermeyer 2021, 23The finding aids incorporated hyperlinks to each Archive-It collection and information about the websites. The top section of the finding aid now includes a separate line for date range capture for the websites.Orbis Cascade Alliance 2021, 4[T]he difference between date “range” and “inclusive” is that “range” can have either a beginning date or end date OR both a beginning and end date. “Inclusive” dates must have both a beginning AND end date.
Notes
Similar terms are also time span or span date. Such expressions are used by archivists to express inclusive, bulk, actual, estimated, or supposed dates for records, creators, events, or other purposes.
