CrossRef metadata for all!
(via Code4Lib) CrossRef currently has a competition running. Submit a proposal for an innovative service that uses CrossRef data and if you're selected you can get an account for free (giving you access to the CrossRef database, which normally costs $$$).
In case you haven't heard of CrossRef:
Simplistically, CrossRef can supply the basic metadata (title, authors, journal details) associated with DOIs from the scientific literature.
In case you haven't heard of DOIs: DOIs are unique, resolvable identifiers for digital content (papers or figures, for example..). This paper has DOI 10.1186/1743-422X-4-67 . If you go to the CrossRef homepage and enter that string into the DOI resolver you'll be redirected to wherever the owner of the DOI (BioMedCentral, in this case) says the paper currently resides.
An example of how this data is used: when a paper is published the references at the bottom of the page can be hyperlinked by doing a reverse lookup on the CrossRef database i.e. asking 'what's the DOI of the paper with this title and author list'?
Another example: imagine a scholarly bookmarking system like Connotea or Zotero. When somebody bookmarks a paper you could scrape the title, authors, etc. directly from the HTML and hope that it doesn't break, or you could just scrape the DOI and then get all of the other metadata from CrossRef.
I think the competition is a good idea. My only problem with it is that IMHO CrossRef data should be free for non-commercial use anyway. At the moment it sorta kinda is; there's a 'demo' interface which you can use to try the service out.
If CrossRef really want to encourage innovative uses of their data then they should open up the database to anybody who wants to build (free, publicly accessible) applications on top of it.
Sure, CrossRef costs money to run but surely more people and open systems using DOIs in turn make it more worthwhile for publishers or software vendors to sign up as commercial members?
In any case if you've got a brilliant biomedical mashup in mind that might benefit you should apply. The deadline for proposals is July 15th.
In case you haven't heard of CrossRef:
CrossRef's specific mandate is to be the citation linking backbone for all scholarly information in electronic form. CrossRef is a collaborative reference linking service that functions as a sort of digital switchboard. It holds no full text content, but rather effects linkages through Digital Object Identifiers (DOI), which are tagged to article metadata supplied by the participating publishers. The end result is an efficient, scalable linking system through which a researcher can click on a reference citation in a journal and access the cited article.
Simplistically, CrossRef can supply the basic metadata (title, authors, journal details) associated with DOIs from the scientific literature.
In case you haven't heard of DOIs: DOIs are unique, resolvable identifiers for digital content (papers or figures, for example..). This paper has DOI 10.1186/1743-422X-4-67 . If you go to the CrossRef homepage and enter that string into the DOI resolver you'll be redirected to wherever the owner of the DOI (BioMedCentral, in this case) says the paper currently resides.
An example of how this data is used: when a paper is published the references at the bottom of the page can be hyperlinked by doing a reverse lookup on the CrossRef database i.e. asking 'what's the DOI of the paper with this title and author list'?
Another example: imagine a scholarly bookmarking system like Connotea or Zotero. When somebody bookmarks a paper you could scrape the title, authors, etc. directly from the HTML and hope that it doesn't break, or you could just scrape the DOI and then get all of the other metadata from CrossRef.
I think the competition is a good idea. My only problem with it is that IMHO CrossRef data should be free for non-commercial use anyway. At the moment it sorta kinda is; there's a 'demo' interface which you can use to try the service out.
If CrossRef really want to encourage innovative uses of their data then they should open up the database to anybody who wants to build (free, publicly accessible) applications on top of it.
Sure, CrossRef costs money to run but surely more people and open systems using DOIs in turn make it more worthwhile for publishers or software vendors to sign up as commercial members?
In any case if you've got a brilliant biomedical mashup in mind that might benefit you should apply. The deadline for proposals is July 15th.
posted by Stew @ 10:49 AM
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Bill Hooker
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Bill Hooker
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Duncan Hull
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