PublicationStmt-Changes

About <publicationStmt>

Since P2, the content of <publicationStmt> has been arranged by order. The rules, much the same in P2, P3, P4, and P5, are that the contents of <publicationStmt> should consist of one or more "sets" of an authorizing agent (<publisher>, <distributor>, <authority> -- we'll call this the "leader" element here) followed by zero or more elements either describing the agent or the authorizations the agent prohibits or allows (<pubPlace>, <address>, <idno>, <availability>, and <date> -- we'll call these the "follower" elements here).

Changes in P5 Version 2.6.0

However, these rules have only been partially enforced by the schema (to different extents in P2-P5). The 2.6.0 release brings two changes to <publicationStmt>, one to the rules, and one to the schema.

1. Prior to this release, the "follower" elements were supposed to appear in that particular order (<pubPlace>, <address>, <idno>, <availability>, and then <date>), if at all. As of P5 version 2.6.0 this constraint is dropped: the "following" elements within a "set" may appear in any order.
2. Although the rules were quite clearly written in P5, the schema did not enforce them. One could put "leader" elements after "follower" elements, or not have a "leader" element at all. However, as of P5 2.6.0 the schema now enforces the rules.

It is quite likely that some people have not noticed the detailed rules listed in the TEI P5 Guidelines, and just followed the schema. The good news is that now these folks will not have to puzzle through the rules to know if their documents conform or not -- the validator will just raise an error if the <publicationStmt> does not follow the rules. The bad news, of course, is if your document doesn't follow the rules, now you have to fix it.

We believe that the most common error to occur will be of a missing "leader" element, as happens when you have only an <availability>. We think this will be common because many on the TEI Technical Council recognise that they have done this themselves!

Examples

Samples of proper <publicationStmt> structures:

one "set" of a "leader" with no "followers":

<publicationStmt>
     <publisher> <!-- Publisher Information here --> </publisher>
   </publicationStmt>

one "set" of a "leader" with a few "followers":

  <publicationStmt>
    <publisher> <!-- Publisher Name Here --> </publisher>
    <address>  <!-- Publisher Address Here --> </address>
    <date>  <!-- Date of Publication Here --> </date>
    <availability>  <!-- Availability Statement Here --> </availability>
  </publicationStmt>

two "sets" of a "leader" with 1 and 3 "followers", respectively:

  <publicationStmt>
    <distributor> <!-- Distributor Information Here --> </distributor> 
    <availability>  <!-- Availability Statement Here --> </availability>

    <publisher> <!-- Publisher Name Here --> </publisher>
    <pubPlace> <!-- Publisher Name Here --> </pubPlace>
    <date>  <!-- Date of Publication Here --> </date>
    <idno> <!-- Identification Number Here --> </idno>
  </publicationStmt>

<publicationStmt> can be just a series of paragraphs or anonymous blocks:

  <publicationStmt>
    <ab> <!-- Publication Information Here --> </ab>
    <ab> <!-- More Publication Information Here --> </ab>
  </publicationStmt>