DOI's and URL's

alandsloane

I'm wondering what's the recommended way to use the DOI and URL fields for journal articles (and other related types, such as book chapters and reports)?

As I understand it, the DOI is the preferred and persistent link to online journal articles, but that it's only valid for publishers who are partners in the Crossref consortium. So many, or maybe most, journal articles will have a DOI, and then it's the preferred link to the official online version.
However other journals and most books, book chapters, and reports don't have DOI's, and so the best link to their online version would be stored in the URL field (with the DOI field left blank).

I notice though that sometimes Zotero (presumably through the publisher's website meta-data) stores a http//dx.doi.org/... url into the URL field, and other times it stores a direct url to the journal webpage. I also notice that some book chapters (and even books, i think) are being assigned DOI's.

Finally, I've been experimenting with using a Zotero group to publish an online bibliography, and I noticed that the URL field is clickable there, but that the DOI field is not. Is that correct? (If not, that's the feature request!)

bwiernik

Generally, it is best to store both the DOI and URL when available. Currently, some CSL citation styles include the URL, but not the DOI, so this is the best way to ensure that an identifier gets included in all styles.

For item types that don't have DOIs, you can include them in styles by storing them in the Extra field in the following format:
{:DOI: 10.1234/567890}

A URL-formatted DOI (or other persistent link, such as an HDL handle) is the best thing to store in the URL field (including for book chapters, books, tech reports, etc.). The preferred format for this is "http://doi.org/10.1234/567890", thought the "dx.doi.org" version works fine, as well.

The DOI field is indeed not clickable on the Zotero website at the moment. I believe it is planned to be fixed in the upcoming major overhaul of the Zotero web library interface (but I'm not sure on that).

alandsloane

Thanks @bwiernik, that's helpful. And I look forward to the DOI being clickable on the website.

In the meantime I can put the doi.org into the URL and then users of the group can click through (if I don't give the PDF as an attachment, or in a public group). I knew that dx.doi.org was deprecated, but I assume it will go on working for a very long time since it's widely used already. And it seems that APA hasn't cottoned on to the change, but I assume they're not total pedants and will accept either form?

I had seen some references to the {:DOI: xxx} format in the "Extra" field. Can you say if any of the citation styles use that information? Or, is it accessible through CSL e.g. for styles that include it (like APA)? And I think I've seen some mention of some other structured information that can be stored in "Extra" - are there any more?

Thanks again.

adamsmith

Or, is it accessible through CSL e.g. for styles that include it (like APA)?

This. Should already work, e.g., in APA.

And I think I've seen some mention of some other structured information that can be stored in "Extra" - are there any more?

it's technically possible (though not necessarily recommended -- we don't guarantee moving this into regular data fields later on) to add any existing csl variable to any item using the {:variable-name: content} in the extra field.
In addition you can add PMID and PMCID using PMID: 12345 on a new line in the extra field. The same is planned, but not yet implemented for DOIs. Dan (rightly) prefers those clean labels to the curly braces hack.

alandsloane

Thanks for all the info. If I understand @adamsmith correctly, the info from {:name: value} will be accessible in CSL (provided "name" is a valid CSL variable). Correct?

adamsmith

Yup