Can I use an HTML input type "date" to collect only a year?
No, you can't, it doesn't support only year, so to do that you need a script, like jQuery or the webshim link you have, which shows year only.
If jQuery would be an option, here is one, borrowed from Sibu:
Javascript
$(function() {
$( "#datepicker" ).datepicker({dateFormat: 'yy'});
});
CSS
.ui-datepicker-calendar {
display: none;
}
Src: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13528855/2827823
Src fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/vW8zc/
Here is an updated fiddle, without the month and prev/next buttons
If bootstrap is an option, check this link, they have a layout how you want.
No you can not, but input type number
provides exactly the functionality you need for this purpose.
Example:
<input type="number" min="1900" max="2099" step="1" value="2016" />