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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">We have our date fields set up as:</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Prefix ("before", "by" etc.)<br>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Ending day-month-year</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Where a date is known not to be a range, we just don't use the interpolator or the ending fields.
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">We also use hyphens to indicate that we definitely don't know a field's contents (that is: on the basis of the data supplied with the specimen, it can't be known), rather than leaving it blank. Thus a label reading "August
1970" would be:</p>
<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">-- Aug 1970</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Or "1995" would be</p>
<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">-- --- 1995</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">"Spring 1984" could be rendered:</p>
<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">01 Jan 1984 to 30 Apr 1984</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">but you'd need to have conventions for when spring starts and finishes. You could also use "spring" as a prefix:</p>
<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Spring -- --- 1984</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">PC</p>
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<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px"><b>Paul Callomon</b><br>
<i>Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates</i><br>
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<font face="Verdana"><b>Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia</b></font><br>
<i>callomon@ansp.org Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170</i><br>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces@mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Schultz, Eric <eric.schultz@uconn.edu><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, September 17, 2018 9:21 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> nhcoll-l@mailman.yale.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Nhcoll-l] how should we encode vague dates in specimen database?</font>
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<p class="x_MsoNormal">We are cleaning up entries in a legacy database so that our data can be imported into a properly configured collections database. Exact dates will be imported in a text string mm/dd/yyyy. But how to render a vague date referring only
to season, such as ‘Spring 1984’, or if only the year was recorded? Is it better to record as missing data, record as an erroneous but exact date such as 01/01/1984, or place at the midpoint of the season? Whatever we do we will have a ‘verbatim’ field that
preserves the original entry, but we want to have a version of collection date that is useful and searchable. Thanks for any assistance!</p>
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<p class="x_MsoNormal">Eric T. Schultz</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">Coordinator, Joint BS-MS Degree in Biodiversity and Conservation Biology</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">Director, Vertebrate Biodiversity Collections</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">Chair, General Education Oversight Committee</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">University of Connecticut</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">Storrs, CT 06269-3043</p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:eric.schultz@uconn.edu" id="LPlnk721376" class="OWAAutoLink" previewremoved="true">eric.schultz@uconn.edu</a></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal">860.486.4692</p>
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