Closed arcadiafalcone closed 2 years ago
Do you know if there's a definitive source for how we should display MODS dates in general?
As a shared standard, you mean? Not for display, but several content standards have patterns for recording uncertain dates as strings (ex. RDA 1.9.2, DCRM(B) 4D5, DACS 2.4). None of them cover a situation where start and end dates are known with differing levels of certainty, though - the previous example would most likely be represented as "[not after 1906]".
Thanks. I was mostly interested in display standards for dates. I'm a little scared of the amalgam of display rules we have now, and the lack of a shared standard probably explains why.
MODS puts the start and end dates of a range in separate date elements, each of which may have its own qualifier. Applying qualifier decoration to the range as a whole rather than to the individual elements can reduce the precision of the information in display.
Example: a photo with no exact date that is known to be pre-1906-earthquake, in a collection that starts in 1880 MODS:
<dateCreated point="start" qualifier="approximate">1880</dateCreated>
<dateCreated point="end">1906</dateCreated>
Current display: [ca. 1880-1906] (implies both ends of range are approximate) Desired display: [ca. 1880]-1906 (specifies that only start date is approximate)