How to display views exposed filter as links when the filter is a date field with year granularity? I have a student project View that I want to filter by year using a date field.  

I would like to find a way to have the years appear as links or a menu at the top. 

I have tried the Better Exposed Filters module but I don't get the option to display the year as links with a date field.

I have tried making a block view which has the date field rewritten as a link with it's token value(/2010) as well as a contextual filter on the date field .

This works except I get as many 2011's as there are values for 2011.  

Is there something I could do with glossary mode?

Anyone know of a way?
You are almost there: you have to group your results by the year field.  In the settings of your display format just pick a grouping column: