CrossRef's Book Working Group has issued a document for discussion entitled "CrossRef Best Practices for Books". The document addresses the issues in assigning DOIs and reference linking for book content. Topics include the best way to deposit book metadata, how to handle versions and updates, and how to query for whole books and book chapters. Following these best practices will maximize reference linking among books, journals and conference proceedings, and improve the readers' experiences.
If you have scholarly book content, whether you have begun to assign DOIs or not, please review the discussion document at http://www.crossref.org/06members/best_practices_for_books.html.
If you publish scholarly books and have not yet begun to assign DOIs, we encourage you to join over 40 other CrossRef members who have found that assigning DOIs for books increases traffic, usage, and exposure to this valuable content. Since 2004 more than 1.6 million DOIs have been assigned for book content from more than 75,000 book titles. Book content is one of the most rapidly growing content types for CrossRef DOIs.
If you are interested in learning more about depositing and linking book content using CrossRef, please see the following presentation: http://www.crossref.org/10meetings/dois_for_books_webinar_oct182007.pdf.
We look forward to your feedback.