title: Date in a short text data type field... Select query trouble
body: <p>In my Access database, I have a table called <code>customers</code>. In this table I have a column called <code>DateEntered</code>. The data type for the field is <em>short text</em>.</p>
  
  <p>The values in this column are not coherent - they come in several variations:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>MM-DD-YYYY</code>,</li>
  <li><code>MMDDYYYY</code> and</li>
  <li><code>MM/DD/YYYY</code>.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>There doesn't seem to be any standard set.</p>
  
  <p>My goal is to select all customers from 2012. I tried</p>
  
  <pre><code>select *
  from customers
  where DateEntered &lt;('%2013') AND &gt;('%2012');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but it comes up blank when I run it. </p>
  
  <p>Can anyone point out what I'm failing to do correctly &amp; more importantly explain why exactly this query doesn't work in Access? From my understanding of SQL (not very advanced) this should work. </p>