Why join CrossRef

When we created CrossRef back in early 2000, none of us could have anticipated how successful the initiative would become in just a few short years. CrossRef is now best known as the association behind publishing's preeminent shared digital infrastructure -- a citation linking network that spans millions of resources (including journals, books, conferences, dissertations, datasets, gray literature and other materials), across several centuries, representing the interests of hundreds of publishers.

The reasons for CrossRef's success are pretty clear:

(1) CrossRef links are *stable* links, and the value of persistence in the digital age can't be overestimated.
(2) Links drive traffic. When you register your content with CrossRef, it automatically becomes "visible" for linking by all the other users of the service.
(3) Our core linking service is about taking readers reliably to the content provider's front door, whatever your access model might be.
(4) Publishers and other content providers have found CrossRef to be a fertile environment for collaboration on new technologies to improve the online research experience, and they enjoy being a part of the CrossRef community.

So if you publish academic content and you aren't already a member, please consider this an invitation to join. You may enjoy this 1-minute animated introduction to the CrossRef concept.

How to become a member.

You can download the current membership agreement and application here. Please submit two signed copies of each by mail to:

Amy Brand
Director of Business & Product Development
CrossRef
40 Salem Street
Lynnfield, MA 01940
USA

We charge two types of fees. Our annual membership fee is based on a company's gross publishing revenue. You will also be charged a small deposit fee for each DOI record you register with CrossRef. Please see our publishers fees page for detailed, up-to-date information on fees.

Upon joining you will receive a CrossRef account, membership login information, a DOI prefix and an invoice for the initial annual fee. DOI deposit fees are billed on a quarterly basis.

Some technical considerations. CrossRef offers both XML-based and non-XML implementation options, although the non-XML approaches are best suited to low-volume deposits and queries.

If you are a small publisher and/or in a rush to get started with the CrossRef system outside of an XML workflow, you will want to use our web deposit form for registering DOIs and our Simple Text Query for retrieving DOIs to create outbound links. But you will still want to familiarize yourself with our system. For technical information, please to go CrossRef Help and select "Getting started".

By the way, we strongly recommend that new publishers getting started with CrossRef deposit their references, where applicable, as part of the DOI registration process. This will allow you to participate in Cited-by Linking from the start. References for Forward Linking can also be cut & pasted into the system using the Simple Text Query form mentioned above.