I've followed this thread on dates to see if any of the discussion is
relevant to the EDTF specification, a date-format standard in development.
Most of the discussion here is about semantics rather than format, which is
out-of-scope for EDTF. However the discussion has touched upon a few
relevant areas, for example, Intervals ("ranges"), uncertainty, and
approximation.
So you might want to take a look at the draft spec:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/spec.html
and if you want to comment or participate in its development (it is near
completion but there is still time to comment), there is a listserv; see:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/listserv.html
Ray Denenberg
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 8:51 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] dates
>
> Quoting "Beacom, Matthew" <matthew.beacom_at_YALE.EDU>:
>
> > FRBR work and expression records could go pretty far to giving
> > something like you are asking for, but it is not a sure thing that
> > they would have to include dates to unambiguously identify a
> > particular work. The date would be a valuable but not a necessary
> > piece of information. To justify the need for the date of first
> > creation (first conception would not be measurable in any practical
> > way), a new generation catalog would need to be specifically defined
> > and understood by users as a tool that would do much more than
> current
> > library catalogs do.
>
> I wouldn't say "much more" but at least a step in the right direction.
> We present dates to users as searches (from __ to ___) or as facets,
> and they have every logical right to think that this is the date of the
> WORK, not the date of a particular printing or re-publication. If
> someone wants to read something written in 1880, they shouldn't have to
> know that the library's copy is a re-publication from 1956. In some
> cases the date of publication of an object on the library's shelf is
> more significant than the date of the work, but I bet that's the rare
> case. Users are more likely to be seeking the work than a particular
> manifestation.
>
> In addition, the lack of "original" dates is creating havoc with
> digitization projects, including Google's, where many PD texts are
> unavailable to be viewed because the publication date of the printed
> object is after 1923. I am sure that Google is doing interesting
> experimentation with text analysis and will be able to identify those
> PD texts separate from any of the content that publishers add to try to
> fool people into thinking that the book has a new copyright (it doesn't,
> only the preface or added content does).
>
> While there will always be difficult cases, the fact is that we deal
> with uncertainty all of the time. We give dates like "19uu" in the 008
> or "1860?" in the publication area. In subject headings and even in
> name authority records we give ranges that can be guesstimates. That's
> still better than not telling the user what we do know about the Work.
> Catalog records can include an original title, or "title by which the
> work is known." Why couldn't they include the "date associated with the
> work"? Plato's personal dates are given as 427-347 B.C. which gives us
> a range for works attributed to him. Subject headings have dates like
> "Before 800". If that's what we know, why not say it?
>
> I feel like library cataloging has become so focused on the OBJECT that
> is being cataloged that we almost forget that there is CONTENT in the
> object, and that the point of the object is to convey that content. I
> think libraries should be less focused on the object and more active in
> helping users learn about the content. (When was the last time we had a
> long discussion about subject analysis or
> classification?) I don't care if we call it cataloging or subject
> access or bibliography, just as long as we do it.
>
> kc
>
> > The by date sorting that you describe is more like a function of a
> > subject bibliography. Do we expect a next generation catalog to
> > search like Google and perform like Perseus for whatever result set
> we
> > wanted? That sets a high bar.
> >
> > Matthew Beacom
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU]
> > On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan [emorgan_at_ND.EDU]
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:49 PM
> > To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] dates
> >
> > On Jul 26, 2011, at 10:07 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> >
> >> I wish a next-generation library catalog would include a field for
> >> date, not the date of the publication, but the date the thing was
> >> conceived.
> >
> > I understand the need for a date published in a library catalog, and
> > I'm not advocating for one and only one date in a bibliographic
> > record.
> >
> > Instead, I want an additional date denoting when -- in all likely
> hood
> > -- the idea expressed by the creator of the work was
> > conceived/embodied. Put another way, I want to sort search results
> > from older to new. Find all of Shakespeare, sort by date, and then I
> > want to read the oldest one first. Find all things regarding
> > New-Platonism, sort by date, and start reading at the end and go back
> > in time.
> >
> > --
> > Eric Lease Morgan
> > University of Notre Dame
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
Received on Wed Jul 27 2011 - 12:48:27 EDT