---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 15:48:46 -1000
From: Steph <sduenneb@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Detailed Holdings date problem

Aloha--

When you receive a serial with no day or month of publication (e.g.
annuals), what do you use as the issue date?  What about items with no
date at all, not even a year?

We are a large academic library using CARL, and we are having a problem in
that the system requires a limited range of values for the YYMMDD issue
date field--it will not accept blanks or "00".  (This is in the issue-level
holdings records, and was not a problem until our Y2K upgrade.)

We are trying to decide if we should make up day and month values, (e.g.
arbitrarily say that all annuals will be Jan. 1, YYYY), and if so, what
should we use?

If anyone else has solved a similar problem or has any insight, your input
and help would be appreciated.  Thank you very much!

--Stephanie Duennebier
  Serials Support Librarian
  University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
  2550 The Mall
  Honolulu, HI  96822  USA
  (808) 956-6639
  (808) 956-5968 Fax
  sduenneb@hawaii.edu