Crossref as a bibliographic discovery tool in the arts and humanities

Crossref is an official digital object identifier registration agency launched in 2000 as a joint effort between publishers to allow persistent cross-publisher citation linking in online academic journals. Our study explores the coverage of Crossref for tracking literature in the arts and humanities, which usually has a national or regional focus and targets domestic audiences. An analysis of the coverage of ERIH PLUS journals shows that Crossref indexes more sources than Scopus and includes additional journals from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Global South. Crossref limitations arise when analyzing the amount of metadata deposited by publishers. Just two-thirds of the journals deposit abstracts and ORCIDs and around a third deposit affiliations. The level of metadata completion for individual articles is lower, with major differences depending on the language of the document. Just half of the journals actually deposit references. As a result, Scopus retrieves more citations than Crossref, except for publications in German and French. Crossref represents a promising bibliographic discovery tool in the arts and humanities but is in need of improvement regarding the level of metadata completion.

Automated summary

Crossref is a digital object identifier registration agency that enables cross-publisher citation linking in online academic journals. Our study focuses on the coverage of Crossref in tracking literature in the arts and humanities, which often has a regional or national focus. The analysis reveals that Crossref indexes more sources than Scopus, particularly journals from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Global South. However, the level of metadata completion needs improvement, as not all journals deposit necessary information.