From: Wilhelmina Randtke <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:41:57 -0400

The front of house librarians and the back of house librarians tend to have
different skill sets and knowledge, or skill sets based on what their job
role is.  I find it hard to believe that all the librarians were unaware of
Crossref.  I find it easy to believe that the librarian liaised to the
editor's college at that university has a PhD or masters or other
background in that college's field, and less of a publishing background.

I do think it's common for journals run out of universities in the U.S. to
not use Crossref.  Even though payments are minimal, the cost of the DOIs
is money handling, and often the person overseeing publishing has a budget
for like staples and pencils, and a different person oversees licensing
vendor databases, and so it's an organizational leap for the publishing
side of things setting up an open account to mint DOIs.  Essentially,
establishing the relationship would move at the pace of bureaucratic
purchasing, so also the librarians could have known what DOIs are and what
Crossref is and also not have had an existing account nor a clear path to
establishing one.

And if the journal is published through some other entity than the library,
then that's a whole other barrier to the library setting up payments on an
account to mint DOIs and to commit to maintaining each DOI forever and
ever, which is not a realistic commitment if the articles are managed by
another entity/publisher.

Best,
-Wilhelmina


Wilhelmina Randtke
Head of Libraries Technologies and Systems
Zach S. Henderson Library
1400 Southern Dr.
Statesboro, GA, 30458
(912) 478-5035
[log in to unmask]


On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 1:02 AM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Amy Schuler <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 09:13:20 -0400
>
> This is surprising to me, however, are you sure the librarians are
> actually "unaware of Crossref", or are they instead unaware of the proper
> procedure or workflow for submitting metadata directly to Crossref?  There
> is a difference.  Off the top of my head, I do not know how to submit
> metadata directly to Crossref, since the (data) repository I use is already
> tied into DataCite and mints DOIs for us.
>
> Also I have no doubt the librarians at the NY institution could figure it
> out in about 10 minutes.
>
>
> Amy C. Schuler (she/her)
> Director, Information Services & Library
>
> Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies | 2801 Sharon Turnpike | Millbrook, NY
> www.caryinstitute.org
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 10:02 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 23:06:03 -0700
>>
>> Dear members,
>>
>> I got into a curious situation. I recently published a paper in a
>> journal, run by one of the universities in NY State, that failed to provide
>> DOI for my paper.
>>
>> The editors were advised to submit the metadata for the paper to Crossref
>> and contacted the university librarians but the latter could not help,
>> being unaware of Crossref.
>>
>> Isn't that scandalous for an American university? How common is this
>> situation in the USA?
>>
>> Ari Belenkiy
>>
>> Vancouver BC
>> Canada
>>
>