CrossRef Search

Academic metadata search and DOI resolution via the public CrossRef REST API.

When to Use

• Resolving a DOI to get full citation metadata
• Searching for papers by title, author, or keywords
• Looking up journal ISSN metadata or publisher info
• Finding citation counts and reference lists
• Retrieving funder information for grants/awards

When NOT to Use

• Full-text access or downloading papers (use publisher sites)
• Preprint search (use arxiv-search)
• Biomedical literature (use pubmed-search)
• Author profile pages or h-index (use openalex-search)

DOI Resolution

curl -s "https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1038/nature12373" | python3 -c "
import sys, json
data = json.load(sys.stdin)['message']
title = data.get('title', [''])[0]
authors = ', '.join(f\"{a.get('given','')} {a.get('family','')}\" for a in data.get('author', []))
journal = data.get('container-title', [''])[0]
cited = data.get('is-referenced-by-count', 0)
print(f'Title: {title}')
print(f'Authors: {authors}')
print(f'Journal: {journal} | Citations: {cited}')
"

Works Search

# Search by query terms
curl -s "https://api.crossref.org/works?query=machine+learning+protein+folding&rows=5&mailto=user@example.com" | python3 -c "
import sys, json
data = json.load(sys.stdin)['message']
for item in data['items']:
    title = item.get('title', [''])[0]
    doi = item.get('DOI', '')
    cited = item.get('is-referenced-by-count', 0)
    print(f'{title}')
    print(f'  DOI: {doi} | Citations: {cited}')
"

# Filter by date, type, and sort by citations
curl -s "https://api.crossref.org/works?query=CRISPR&filter=from-pub-date:2023-01-01,type:journal-article&rows=10&sort=is-referenced-by-count&order=desc&mailto=user@example.com"

# Search by author
curl -s "https://api.crossref.org/works?query.author=Jennifer+Doudna&rows=10&sort=published&order=desc&mailto=user@example.com"

Journal Lookup