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Journal Format (KEV)

The KEV serialization for journal articles, journals, issues, and conference papers — the format identifier almost every scholarly OpenURL uses.

The Journal KEV format is the most common metadata format in OpenURL traffic. It covers journals, issues, articles, preprints and conference papers published in serials. Its Registry identifier is info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal.

Format identifier

rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal

Keys

All keys are optional. Each may appear at most once, except au, which repeats.

Key	Meaning (from the Registry matrix)	Example
`rft.genre`	`journal`, `issue`, `article`, `proceeding`, `conference`, `preprint`, `unknown`	article
`rft.atitle`	Article title	Can Quantum-Mechanical Description…
`rft.jtitle`	Journal title, as complete as available	Physical Review
`rft.stitle`	Abbreviated journal title	Phys. Rev.
`rft.title`	Journal title, kept for compatibility with 0.1; prefer `jtitle`	—
`rft.aulast`	First author's family name	Einstein
`rft.aufirst`	First author's given name(s) or initials	Albert
`rft.auinit`	First author's first and middle initials	A
`rft.auinit1`	First author's first initial	A
`rft.auinitm`	First author's middle initial	—
`rft.ausuffix`	First author's name suffix	Jr.
`rft.au`	Full name of one author; repeatable	Podolsky, B.
`rft.aucorp`	Corporate author	World Health Organization
`rft.date`	Publication date: `YYYY`, `YYYY-MM` or `YYYY-MM-DD`	1935-05-15
`rft.chron`	Non-normalised chronology, e.g. "1st quarter"	1st quarter
`rft.ssn`	Season: `spring`, `summer`, `fall`, `winter`	winter
`rft.quarter`	Quarter: 1, 2, 3 or 4	4
`rft.volume`	Volume	47
`rft.part`	Part, e.g. a lettered section or supplement	B
`rft.issue`	Issue	10
`rft.spage`	Start page	777
`rft.epage`	End page	780
`rft.pages`	Page range or unstructured pagination	777-780
`rft.artnum`	Article number assigned by the publisher	e0123456
`rft.issn`	ISSN	0031-899X
`rft.eissn`	ISSN of the electronic version	—
`rft.isbn`	ISBN (for serials that carry one)	—
`rft.coden`	CODEN	PHRVAO
`rft.sici`	Serial Item and Contribution Identifier	—

Worked example

url_ver=Z39.88-2004
&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004
&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal
&rft.genre=article
&rft.atitle=Can+Quantum-Mechanical+Description+of+Physical+Reality+Be+Considered+Complete%3F
&rft.jtitle=Physical+Review
&rft.stitle=Phys.+Rev.
&rft.issn=0031-899X
&rft.aulast=Einstein
&rft.aufirst=A.
&rft.au=Podolsky%2C+B.
&rft.au=Rosen%2C+N.
&rft.date=1935-05-15
&rft.volume=47
&rft.issue=10
&rft.spage=777
&rft.epage=780
&rft_id=info:doi/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777
&rfr_id=info:sid/example.com:database

Notes

The first author goes in aulast/aufirst (or the initials keys). Each rft.au carries the full name of one author, in any common form such as "Smith, Fred M" or "Harry S. Truman". Some sources repeat the first author in rft.au as well.
genre=conference is a whole conference record published as a journal issue; genre=proceeding is a single paper published in a journal or serial. Papers in book-like proceedings volumes belong in the Book format.
Use spage/epage when you can and pages for anything else ("A7, C4-9").
For preprints set rft.genre=preprint and identify them with, for example, rft_id=info:arxiv/2103.00010. See Preprint (arXiv).

Format identifier

Keys

Worked example

Notes

Sources