Existence Dates
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The existenceDates element will be available for use from 7 December 2011 with the introduction of RIF-CS v1.3.0.
Meaning and purpose
Existence dates record the start and end dates of the existence of the entity being described.
Existence dates for parties support the ARDC Party Infrastructure. Knowing the birth date or year of a researcher makes it easier to match party descriptions to the right person or organisation in the NLA's Trove-People and Organisations database.
Existence dates for research projects will support future timeline searching and filtered searching (e.g. search only for completed projects).
Examples
- People—dates of birth and death
- Organisations—dates of establishment, incorporation, dissolution
- Research projects—start and finish dates
Definitions
- startDate: the beginning date for a period of existence for an entity
- endDate: the finish date for a period of existence for an entity
Vocabularies
Date Formats
- UTC: Coordinated Universal Time
- W3CDTF: W3C Date Time Format
RIF-CS best practice
- End dates should be later than start dates. This is not system-enforced.
- It is acceptable to provide only a start date or only an end date.
RIF-CS examples
Birth year for a person
<party type="person">
<identifier type="AU-ANL:PEAU">http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-234234</identifier>
existenceDates>
<startDate dateFormat="UTC">1976</startDate>
</existenceDates>
<name type="primary">
<namePart type="family">Smith</namePart>
<namePart type="given">Mary</namePart>
</name>
</party>
Start and finish dates for a project
<activity type="project">
<identifier type="purl">http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP74234</identifier>
<existenceDates>
<startDate dateFormat="UTC">1999</startDate>
<endDatedateFormat="W3CDTF">2002-06-30T00:00:00Z</endDate>
</existenceDates>
<name type="primary">
<namePart>Impact of serotonin uptake inhibitors on symptoms of bi-polar disorder in young patients</namePart>
</name>
</activity>
| Date | Change history |
| 21 Nov 2011 | First web publication. Element introduced as part of RIF-CS v1.3.0. with effect from 7 Dec 2011. |
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