Publication Dates
The <pub-date> element should be used to capture control date and cover date.
- Control Date
- The control date is a date representation of the journal volume year and cover month for each issue in the volume, and is based on the journal’s frequency of publication. For instance, if an issue’s spine reads “January 2013”, the corresponding control date for the issue will be “2013-01-01”. The control date will normally be similar to, but does not have to match, the actual or estimated publication date of the issue. The control date controls the order in which issues appear on Taylor & Francis Online, and can affect what content a customer is able to access for date-based subscriptions.
- Cover Date
- For journals that use cover dates, the cover date should be captured in a <pub-date> element with type "cover" in the <string-date> element. The complete cover date should be captured, including the year. For example:
The control date and the cover date (if used) will normally be provided for each issue in cats.xml. If control date is not provided, the following rules may be used to populate control date from the issue's cover date:
| Rule | Example cover date | Corresponding control date |
|---|---|---|
| If cover date indicates a specific calendar day, that date should be used for control date. | March 15, 2013 | 2013-03-15 |
| If cover date indicates a range of dates, the earliest date should be used for control date. | January 15 - February 15, 2013 | 2013-01-15 |
| If cover date contains only a month and a year, control date should be set as the first day of that month. | April 2013 | 2013-04-01 |
| If cover date contains only a year, control date should be set as the first day of that year. | 2013 | 2013-01-01 |
If cover date contains a season, the season should be mapped to a month as follows, and set as the first day of that month:
|
Spring 2013 | 2013-03-01 |
Articles not in an issue
For articles at the just-accepted/AMO/tagging stage, and for ahead-of-issue/Preview articles, the control date should be populated based on the current date. Typesetters should set control date to the next calendar day from the date the article files are supplied. For example, if just-accepted or ahead-of-issue files will be delivered to Taylor & Francis on 4 May 2013, control date should be set as 2013-05-05. Cover date should not be present in just-accepted or ahead-of-issue files.