Please excuse any duplication.

The Library of Congress, in conjunction with several partners, has initiated an effort to develop a simple XML date/time format that can be referenced by XML schemas. In the MODS schema, for example, date formats are restricted to 'w3cdtf' (defined as the W3C Date Time Format Note which is a profile of ISO 8601), 'iso8601' (defined as the alternative in ISO 8601 "basic" that specifies the form YYYYMMDD, etc. rather than the form with hyphens), and 'marc' (defined as the conventions used in the MARC 008/07-14 character positions). None of these really meets the requirements of a date time format for these schemas.

Please see http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/ which provides a rationale for this work and the requirements that it addresses. We would be pleased to hear of additional requirements or any other comments or suggestions. Please send comments to Ray Denenberg ([log in to unmask]) by April 20, 2009.



Rebecca S. Guenther
 Senior Networking and Standards Specialist
 Network Development and MARC Standards Office
 Library of Congress
 101 Independence Ave. SE
 Washington, DC 20540
 Washington, DC 20540-4402
 (202) 707-5092 (voice) (202) 707-0115 (FAX)
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