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Hey there, 

If you're using MARC, you could try the 046 field. It's for special dates. 

-Katie

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joy Nelson
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2016 3:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] date fields

Hi Eric-
Are you planning on storing the 'normalized' dates for ever in the MARC?
i.e. leave the c1900 in the 260$c and have 1900 in another place?

I think what you do depends on your ILS and tools.  My first reaction would
be to stash the date in an unused subfield in the 260.  If your system
allows you to add 'non standard' subfields, you could use 260$z to stash it.

But, then I start to think that might rankle some catalogers to have 'non
standard' date data in the 260 (or 264).  I would probably then look at
using one of the local use tags.  901-907, 910, or 945-949.  You could be
the date in $a and even a brief description in a second subfield.
901$a1900$bnormalized date for project XYZ -initials/date

-Joy

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I’m looking for date fields.
>
> Or more specifically, I have been given a pile o’ MARC records, and I will
> be extracting for analysis the values of dates from MARC 260$c. From the
> resulting set of values — which will include all sorts of string values
> ([1900], c1900, 190?, 19—, 1900, etc.) — I plan to normalize things to
> integers like 1900. I then want to save/store these normalized values back
> to my local set of MARC records. I will then re-read the data to create
> things like timelines, to answer questions like “How old is old?”, or to
> “simply” look for trends in the data.
>
> What field would y’all suggest I use to store my normalized date content?
>
> —
> Eric Morgan
>



-- 
Joy Nelson
Director of Migrations

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