Date:         Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:19:34 +1000
Reply-To:     Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Christiaan Kortekaas <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Date granularity
Comments: To: Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi All

Is there an attribute in MODS date elements where you could specify the
date granularity?

Perhaps a 'granularity attribute' for each date element would be a good
idea like the OAI PMH Identify
granularity eg YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ

This way an application that uses MODS could save a value like
'2007-02-01T00:00:00Z'. 

If the granularity attribute for this MODS date element was set to
'YYYY-MM' then the application 
would know that all it should display is 2007-02 and the rest is
irrelevant or unknown. Then the backend system
indexing the MODS XML (eg Fedora or an SQL database index) could save
the date in an acceptable date value eg '2007-02-01 00:00:00' is ok and
'2007-02' is
not acceptable in an SQL datetime field.

How do others handle this problem in MODS? I would prefer not to save
the granularity seperately in the application somewhere else, but
prefer to keep it in MODS if possible.

Thanks for your advice,
Christiaan Kortekaas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Christiaan Kortekaas 
Senior Library Systems Programmer 
Library Technology Service 
The University of Queensland, Australia 
QLD 4072 
Telephone : (61) (7) 3346 4337 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~