How does dblp handle Online First publications?

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dblp indexes papers and articles on a "per-volume" basis. This means we do not process articles individually, we always process whole proceedings volumes or journal issues/volumes at once. This is a necessary restriction to keep the task of indexing thousands of computer science venues manageable with such a small team.

Online First publishing strategies allow readers to access articles early while the containing issue/volume is still in the making. But they also make indexing much more difficult for us since they publish on a "per-article" basis. dblp simply does not have the resources to keep up with this model of publication. In order to keep our task manageable and to avoid mistakes and inconsistencies in our data (which, in the end, also leads to a higher workload for us and fewer articles in dblp) we do not process Online First publications unless they meet all of the following properties:

The core meta data (i.e., authors, title, year of publication, page and/or article numbers, DOI, volume and/or issue numbers) of each Online First article needs to be complete and final. We do not have the resources to continuously check for updates and revise the meta data of already indexed items.
The containing issue or volume of the article is complete and final, i.e., no articles will removed from or added to the issue/volume at some later date (with the exception of scientifically justified retractions). Again, given our resources, it is infeasible for us to continuously check for updates. Also, we have learned the hard way that indexing incomplete issues/volumes leads to many errors on our end, such as indexing only part of its contents.
We need to be able to clearly identify that the core meta data and the issue's/volume's table of contents is complete and final, either trough notification by the publishers or from clear information given in a venue's digital library.

If an Online First venue does not meet all of these criteria, processing has to wait until the issue/volume has been published properly. Please note that this does not exclude your Online First article from being index in dblp. It just means that it will not be added to dblp as early as the article is available on the publisher's website. In such a case, we ask for your kind patience. We will index the completed issues/volumes as soon as they are finished by the publisher.

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