Encoding Guide. Dates

Record: DATE
Every record has a date in the top left corner. The most common dating convention will be day/month/year. There may be a range of days, months or years. There may also be the term “Ante” or “Post” written before it. All text and punctuation in the date field should be coded with the date <d> tag.

<dɰ July 1776.</d>

<d>Ante 4 July 1776</d>

<d>[4-6] July 1776</d>

<d>[n.d.]</d>


IMPORTANT: Creating new records

A new record should be created for each slip. As long as the slip has something in the date <d> category, it should be considered a new record and assigned a new record ID number (See RECORD IDs, above, for the assignment of ID numbers).

The slip file was created to be viewed just like a traditional card catalog, one slip after another. Sometimes, a document’s slip required more information than could fit on one slip of paper. In these instances, additional slips of paper were included immediately following the first slip—the slip with a date on it. These follow-up slips do not have a date but do have “cont.” or “2nd page” centered on the top line. These slips should be considered part of the previous slip and all of the content on the continuation slips should be encoded within the same <x> element with the content of the initial slip. Most of the additional text, including the phrase “cont.” or “2d page,” will fall under the NOTE category.

Any slip that cannot be determined to have a new date or to be a continuation slip should be given a unique ID number, the information transcribed and tagged, and must be flagged for review using the empty review <r/> tag.