Index: trunk/src/com/drew/metadata/Directory.java
===================================================================
--- trunk/src/com/drew/metadata/Directory.java	(revision 8132)
+++ trunk/src/com/drew/metadata/Directory.java	(revision 8243)
@@ -81,4 +81,12 @@
 
 // VARIOUS METHODS
+
+    /**
+     * Gets a value indicating whether the directory is empty, meaning it contains no errors and no tag values.
+     */
+    public boolean isEmpty()
+    {
+        return _errorList.isEmpty() && _definedTagList.isEmpty();
+    }
 
     /**
@@ -759,4 +767,7 @@
                     if (timeZone != null)
                         parser.setTimeZone(timeZone);
+                    else
+                        parser.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT")); // don't interpret zone time
+
                     return parser.parse(dateString);
                 } catch (ParseException ex) {