For anyone who would like to try it, here is a copy of a Perl script that
will normalize dates in an existing finding aid to ISO 8601.  It reads in
the content of a <unitdate> element, then creates and inserts a "normal = "
attribute.  It is still in the beta test version, so comments are welcome.

http://monkey.org/~caz/TRI-scripts/tri-XMLdate-normalizer.pl

The script will work with most date formats familiar to archivists.  Any
unrecognized date formats cause the script to pause, and prompt the encoder
to enter the normalized form of the date.  This will create the "normal = "
attribute, while leaving the displaying date in the "nonstandard"
format.  (A list of allowable date formats appears below.)

Please note that it has only been tested in Windows with ActivePerl
5.8.3.809.  It requires the XML::Twig and HTML::Entities modules.

Thanks to Jason Casden at the Ohio State University Jerome Lawrence and
Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute for writing the script.  Comments
or reports of problems can be sent to him at <[log in to unmask]>.


The following is a list of date formats allowed in tri-XMLdate-normalizer.pl
Note: Years must be expressed in four digits.

single year: 1920
span of years: 1920-1932

----------------------------------------------------------------

Any of the following date formats may appear alone, or in a span of dates
in any combination with another of the following category of formats:

month and year: August 1950
or 8/1950 or 8-1950

month, day and year: August 8, 1974
or 8-8-1974
or 8/8/1974
(assumed that month is first, date is second)

day, month and year: 8 August 1974
(numeric variants won't work here, for reason listed above)

already normalized dates like:
1950-08-17
1950-08

-----------------------------------------------------------------

These formats may appear alone, but may not be part of a date range:

uncertain date: ca. 1945

very uncertain date: 19th century

decade known: 1920s

unknown date: undated or n.d.

supplied unknown date: [1920?]

Amy McCrory
Archivist, Cartoon Research Library
023L Wexner Center
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
(614) 292-0538