UNB Libraries ~ DOI Guide (DOI)
The Digital Object Identifier: What it is. How to use it.
A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a sequence of characters that uniquely identifies some sort of digital information. It is similar to codes that may be more familiar, such as an ISBN. Every ISBN uniquely identifies an edition of a book. No ISBN is ever assigned to two works. No DOI ever identifies two different things. And like an ISBN, a DOI is persistent. Once assigned, it will not change.
Almost anything that has intellectual property content may be assigned a DOI. This is usually done by a publisher. The most common types of materials assigned DOIs are electronic journal articles and e-books. In order to assign DOIs, publishers must work with a Registration Authority, which assigns a prefix for the publishers’ use. More details on this can be found at the DOI web site.
Where are DOIs found?
Most major publishers now print the assigned DOI on the first page of journal articles. DOIs are also a part of many bibliographic databases, such as PubMed, PsycINFO, or Sociological Abstracts. DOI information is imported into RefWorks from these databases.
DOIs and the Lookup Function
One of the most important aspects of the DOI system is the lookup function. A URL that points to an article can change. This may happen when web sites are overhauled or publications are sold to new owners. An old URL is useless in finding the current copy of a journal article. With the DOI, on the other hand, publishers have committed to maintaining web-based resources so that, from a DOI, the location of the “official” copy of the item can always be found. Even if the URL of the article changes, the publishers ensure that the DOI lookup function always points to the current, valid location of the article or book.
The most well-known DOI lookup service is located at CrossRef. Entering any DOI will bring up information about the article and a link to view the article. However, the link to the article may not connect to a web site that knows if UNB or STU users have rights to view the article. Users may be asked to pay to see the full text. A better way to look up a DOI is to use the UNB Resolver. It has an Article Locator Function which makes use of CrossRef.
Here we have entered a DOI:
And the results...
... tell us that we have access to the article. Clicking on “Find ARTICLE” will bring it to the screen.
DOIs and Citations
The American Psychological Association first brought the use of DOIs into its citation style with a revision to the 5th edition of its Publication Manual. With the 6th edition of APA Style, the use of DOIs is fully integrated. UNB Libraries provides examples of DOI use in our APA (Sixth Edition) Citation Style Examples document.
As the DOI is a persistent identifier to an item, we can expect to see more citation styles make use of DOIs.