CrossRef's Query API.

Journal metadata query

Journal queries consist of 10 fields delimited by pipes (vertical bars). Individual queries are separated by new line characters (\n or %0A in HEX).

|Biol J Linn Soc|Hardy|64|2|239|1998||MyKey1|
Note the use of the query key. Keys are useful to match queries in the input set vs. queries in the output set
00244066||Hardy|64||239|1998||MyKey2|
You can pass ISSN instead of title or abbreviated title.
|Biol J Linn Soc|Hardy|||239|1998||MyKey1|
Only title,author,page and year passed.

Important Note: While the query system interface allows to submit short queries (A query line in each request for example). It is highly discouraged to do that. The recommended query batch size is 30 queries separated by \n characters and x-www-form-urlencoded. Please refer to samples for Java sample code on how to do this.

Differences from old CrossRef system:

Query fields
- Missing volume and year: The old crossref system does not accept queries where volume and year are both missing. The new CrossRef system does accept those queries (for example: |J. Mol. Biol.|del Cardayre|||328|||6|)
- Missing first page: In the old crossref system. Queries that done have a page are not accepted. Those queries are accepted in the new system. (for example: |J. Mol. Biol.|Hagerman|260|||1996||17|
Filtering through MDDB.XML: The old system provides MDDB.XML which acts as a "Scope Filter". Some publishers download MDDB.XML to their local systems and filter queries through it. While the new system still provides MDDB.XML. It is highly discouraged to perform this step. The new system does fuzzy matching and many queries will resolve even though they dont pass the MDDB.XML filter.

Queries must include page and author. A query that does not include page and author will be rejected by the system. Queries that include only page or only author will still be processed OK.

Book/Conference proceeding metadata query

Book queries consist of 12 fields delimited by pipes (vertical bars). Individual queries are separated by new line characters (\n or %0A in HEX)

Where:

ISBN/ISSN: BOOK or conference proceedings ISBN or ISSN
SER_TITLE: The serial title.
VOL_TITLE: The book title.
AUTHOR/EDITOR: First Author surname.
VOLUME: Book/Conference proceedings volume
EDITION_NUMBER: Edition number for the book or conference proceeding (e.g. 3)
PAGE: First page.
YEAR: Year book or conference proceedings was published.
COMPONENT_NUMBER: Chapter, section or part inside the book/conf. proceeding (e.g. Section 3)
RESOURCE_TYPE: The resource type (full_text, abstract_only or bibliographic_record)
KEY: submitted but the user to track queries

DOI queries

The system supports DOI queries where the user supplies a DOI and obtains the metadata for that DOI. DOI queries are supplied as DOIs separated by new line characters (\n or %0A in HEX), or as KEY|DOI separated by new line characters. Any leading pipes are ignored so that legacy format is supported as well.

Here is a sample DOI query submission:

10.1016/S0277-3791(98)00118-8
1|10.1086/283199
2|10.1016/0006-3207(94)00064-W
||||||||4|10.1039/a709269e