[Sigia-l] Keeping pages current on an intranet / Best Practices

[Avi Rappoport]

I think it's a great idea to include a machine-readable modification 
date, as file mod dates are often inaccurate -- they don't reflect 
the content changes properly.  HTTP servers are even worse, many of 
them give some weird old date, or the current date and time, or 
something else arbitrarily wrong.  Unless you've checked them 
manually, assume all HTTP servers are unreliable.

I've started using the Dublin Core dc.date.modified meta tag, and 
wish everyone did ;-)  A very few search engines can be set to read 
the file date from this tag, and I'm encouraging more to do so.

Dublin Core Metadata is a way to start with standard metadata, and 
let the other people do the heavy lifting of defining all the fiddly 
little rules.  The tags are: Title, Creator, Subject, Description, 
Publisher, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier (URL), Source, 
Language, Relation, Coverage and Rights (copyright information).  The 
fiddly bits are attributes, for example, the Date tag uses the W3C 
encoding rules, based on ISO 8601 (e.g. YYYY-MM-DD).

For a thorough intro, see <http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/>.

I say go for it!

Avi

At 3:53 PM -0400 4/9/02, Kubalak, Janet wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>This might be a bit off-topic but since many of us started as 
>jacks/jills-of-all-trades when it comes to the web, I'm hoping 
>someone will have some suggestions as well as some actual cites.
>
>I'm part of a small group tasked with coming up with a way to ensure 
>that pages on our intranet are current. One of the things I thought 
>of was asking that web pages carry the file attribute "LastModified" 
>in the form "Last Updated: mm/dd/yy" or something similar.
>
>I could swear that this used to be considered a Good Thing to do, 
>but can't find it referenced anywhere and certainly don't see it 
>done that often.  I'm beginning to think I made it up.  Btw, I 
>recognize its limitations, i.e., adding so much as a comma changes 
>the LastModified date, a recent LastModified date is no guarantee of 
>either accuracy or currency, etc.
>
>Does anyone have any memories of using LastModified on web pages?
>An idea of why it is infrequently used?  Any citations to it?
>Recommendations (simple, actionable) for keeping an intranet up to date?
>
>Thanks!
>
>-Janet Kubalak
>  Joint Bank-Fund Library
>  Washington DC 20431
>  Tel: (202) 623-6402
>  Fax: (202) 623-6128
>

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