Element: Coverage
- Interpretation: Requires no interpretation.
- Guideline Repeat DC.COVERAGE values as appropriate in DC.SUBJECT—e.g., “colonial America” or “ ‘Baroque’ dance” as an intellectual access point or keyword.
- Temporal characteristics: Recommended best practice for dates is defined in a profile of ISO 8601 [Date and Time Formats (based on ISO8601), W3C Technical Note http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime, which specifies the format YYYY-MM-DD. If the full date is unknown, month and year (YYYY-MM) or just year (YYYY) may be used. Repeat DC.COVERAGE to express both the time period during which the resource was brought into being and the specific date when it was [thought to be] first cataloged or collected.
- Spatial characteristics:
Where possible, use Getty’s Thesaurus of Geographic Names at http://www.gii.getty.edu/vocabulary/tgn.html, specifying at a sufficient granularity to unambiguously identify the location. Concatenate place names as one string of values separated by semicolons. Start with broadest term and work down to narrowest.
Do not use latitude and longitude unless your audience is accustomed to associating resources to places in this manner (e.g., maritime items or events).