dateMade

dateMade is a metadata field used to record the date on which an item was produced, manufactured, or otherwise made. It is distinct from dates such as dateCreated (when a record or digital file was created) and dateModified (when it was last changed). In practice, dateMade helps with provenance, age estimation, warranty calculations, regulatory compliance, and supply chain traceability.

The value is typically stored as a date, often in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD), and may include a time and timezone in more detailed systems. In older or legacy databases, it may appear as a simple year or as a nominal string. dateMade is commonly applied in product catalogs, inventory and manufacturing systems, museums and archives, and other contexts where knowing the production date is important for dating items, assessing value, or tracking lifecycle.

Best practices for using dateMade include defining a clear policy on what the date represents (manufacture date, production batch date, or another production-related milestone), ensuring consistent interpretation across systems, and using a proper date data type when possible to avoid parsing ambiguities. It is also important to handle unknown or uncertain dates with nulls or standardized placeholders and to document any locale or format conventions to prevent misinterpretation.

Related concepts include dateCreated and dateModified for digital records, dateReleased for public availability dates, and standards or schemas such as Dublin Core or Schema.org that may guide how production dates are represented in metadata. Example: dateMade = 1983-07-15 for a manufactured item.