CrossRef claims huge growth in book deposits

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For the second year in a row CrossRef deposits for books are growing faster than any other content type in its reference linking system, says the US-based not-for-profit organisation.

As of July 2009, more than 1.8 million CrossRef Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) have been assigned for books. Each CrossRef DOI represents a citable book title, chapter, or reference entry that can be used to link references from scholarly content.

CrossRef was founded and directed by publishers. Its key aim is to simplify the the identification and use of trustworthy electronic content by promoting the cooperative development and application of a sustainable infrastructure.

The organisation operates a cross-publisher citation linking system that allows a researcher to click on a reference citation on one publisher’s platform and link directly to the cited content on another publisher’s platform, subject to the target publisher’s access control practices.

'We are very encouraged at the growth of books being used in CrossRef reference linking,” said Michael Forster, chair of CrossRef’s Book Working Group, and vice president, Physical Sciences, Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly Publishing, John Wiley & Sons. 'Our goal is to encourage reference linking among books, proceedings, and journal content, and to enhance the discoverability of professional, reference, technical, and scholarly books.'

Almost 60 publishers have deposited CrossRef DOIs for nearly 84 000 book titles since CrossRef began accepting book deposits. The organisation provides reference linking services for 37 million content items.