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<date> Date

Container element for the parts of a single calendar date.

Usage/Remarks

A <date> element contains date components such as <day>, <month>, and <year> (which are typically given numeric values), as well as non-numeric elements such as <season> (which is a text string).
<date>In Citations, Related Articles, and Products
When used within citations (<element-citation> and <mixed-citation>), this element names the publication date of the cited source.

<string-date> Best Practice

In <date>, individual date elements (such as <year>) must be tagged. However, even inside a <string-date>, the named date components such as <year> should be identified. Use <string-date> for the narrative form of a date when necessary, for example, when a date has no month or year specified or to change the order of date elements.
Related Elements
Within citations (<element-citation> and <mixed-citation>), this element names a date, typically the publication date of the cited source. The elements <year>, <date>, <day>, <month>, and <season> may all be used to describe a date in a citation, both publication dates and other dates. Other dates inside a citation, such as a copyright date, the date on which the author accessed the resource, or a withdrawal date, should be tagged using <date-in-citation> with the @content-type attribute used to name the type of date (copyright, access-date, time-stamp, etc.).
Attributes
calendar
date-type
iso-8601-date
publication-format
specific-use

Base Attributes

id
xml:base
Models and Context
May be contained in
<element-citation>, <mixed-citation>, <product>, <related-article>, <related-object>
Description
The following, in order:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  date         %date-model;                                 >
Expanded Content Model

(((day?, month?) | season)?, year, era?)

Tagged Sample

Publication date in citations

Mixed citation
...
<ref id="B14">
 <mixed-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="print">
  <person-group person-group-type="author">
  <name><surname>Hart</surname> <given-names>JT</given-names>
  </name></person-group>. <source>A new kind of doctor: the 
  general practitioner&rsquo;s part in the health of the 
  community</source>. <publisher-loc>London</publisher-loc>:  
  <publisher-name>Merlin Press</publisher-name>, 
  <date iso-8601-date="1988" date-type="pub"><year>1988</year></date>.
 </mixed-citation>
</ref>
...
Element citation
...
<ref id="B14">
 <element-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="print">
  <person-group person-group-type="author">
   <name><surname>Hart</surname>
    <given-names>JT</given-names></name>
  </person-group>
  <source>A new kind of doctor: the general practitioner&rsquo;s 
   part in the health of the community</source>
  <date iso-8601-date="1988" date-type="pub">
   <year>1988</year>
  </date>
  <publisher-loc>London</publisher-loc>
  <publisher-name>Merlin Press</publisher-name>
 </element-citation>
</ref>
...
Related Resource
For a discussion on the use of <date> in bibliographic references, see Dates in Citations.