Dublin Core Elements

Title | Creator | Date | Subject | Publisher
Type | Description | Contributor | Format | Source
Rights | Identifier | Language | Relation | Coverage

4.7. Date

Label: Date
Element Description: : A date associated with the creation or availability of the resource. Such a date is not to be confused with one belonging to the Coverage element, which would be associated with the resource only insofar as the intellectual content is somehow about that date. Recommended best practice is defined in a profile of ISO 8601 [Date and Time Formats (based on ISO8601), W3C Technical Note http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime] that includes (among others) dates of the forms YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. In this scheme, the date 1994-11-05 corresponds to November 5, 1994.
Guidelines for creation of content:
If the full date is unknown, month and year (YYYY-MM) or just year (YYYY) may be used. Many other schema are possible, but if used, they may not be easily interpreted by users or software.

Examples
<META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT="1998-02-16">
<META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT="1998-02">
<META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT="1998">

Qualifiers for DC.Date

    From LC
      SCHEME:
        (Default is ISO 8601)
        ANSI X3.30
        IETF RFC 822
      TYPE: Note that the names of the subelements have not been agreed upon. The Date Working Group continues to work on these. There was some controversy at the end of DC5 as to whether the first two type subelements should be combined. It was also uncertain whether to include the last three subelements.
        DC.Date.Creation_of_intellectual_content
        DC.Date.Creation/Modification_of_present_form
        DC.Date.Formal_publication
        DC.Date.Available
        DC.Date.Valid (includes verification)
        DC.Date.Acquisition/Accession
        DC.Date.Accepted
        DC.Date.DataGathering
    From UK
      Scheme
        IETF.RFC-822
          Date conforms to the date formats described in RFC 822, for example "Sat, 31 Aug 1996 21:12:34 +0100". This is the default scheme value if the scheme is not explicitly stated.
        ANSI.X3.30-1985
          Date conforms to the date formats described in ANSI X3.30-1985. For the A.D. era to December 31, 9999, YYYYMMDD is used; for example 19960831 (the same as FGDC?). It also defines other formats for B.C. dates and A.D. after 9999.
        ISO.31-1:1992
          Date conforms to the date formats described in ISO 31-1:1992. For example 1996-08-31.
        FGDC
          Date conforms to the date formats described in the FGDC. It is similar to the ANSI.X3.30-1985 scheme; for example 19960831.
        SSE
          Seconds Since the Epoch; the standard UNIX internal time keeping format. This is an integer number of seconds since midnight on 1st January 1970.
      Type
        Creation
          The date on which the resource was first created. This is the default type value if the type is not explicitly stated.
        Current
          The date on which the current form of the resource was created.
        Modified
          The date on which the resource was last modified.
        ValidFrom
          The date from which the resource is valid.
        ValidTo
          The date after which the resource is no longer valid.