CrossRef, the reference-linking service for scholarly and professional content, is pleased to announce the launch of a freely available OpenURL resolver to facilitate navigation to the 17+ million items now registered in CrossRef. The resolver, described at http://www.crossref.org/openurll, allows users to enter an OpenURL as one way to be directed to publications from the hundreds of publishers and societies that participate in CrossRef by registering Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for their content.
CrossRef’s OpenURL resolver is offered at no charge for individual use, and thus functions as a DOI look-up resource for the public. It is fully compliant with the recently approved NISO Z38.88 - 2004 standard entitled “OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services.” The CrossRef resolver accepts URLs structured according to the 0.1 or 1.0 NISO specifications, as well as some common deviations, and it supports the features outlined in the San Antonio Profile (SAP) #1 community profile, including in-line, by-value, and by-reference URLs.
According to Chuck Koscher, CrossRef’s Director of Technology, “With the DOI and OpenURL being mutually supportive technologies, CrossRef is committed to fully supporting the NISO Z39.88-2004 standard. Our resolver is one of the first production implementations of the SAP #1 profile and supports linking to over 1400 content providers.”
CrossRef has also long made available a free text-based interface for individual DOI queries, available at http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/