DOI lookup
Validate a DOI and resolve it to its title, authors, journal and year via CrossRef — with a link to the official doi.org resolver.
The syntax check runs in your browser; resolving the metadata sends the DOI to the public CrossRef API. Nothing is stored.
How to look up a DOI
- Enter a DOI. Paste a DOI or a doi.org link, e.g. 10.1038/nphys1170.
- Resolve. The syntax is checked locally, then CrossRef is queried for the metadata.
- Review. See the title, authors, journal, year and a link to the official resolver.
What a DOI is, and why it doesn't rot
A Digital Object Identifier is a permanent handle for a piece of scholarly or professional
content. Its power is a layer of indirection: the DOI 10.1038/nphys1170 never changes, but the
publisher can update where it points, so the identifier keeps resolving to the current page long after an
ordinary URL would have 404'd. Structurally it's a prefix — always 10. plus a
registrant code assigned to the publisher — a slash, then a suffix the publisher chooses to name
the specific work. DOIs are case-insensitive and can contain almost any character in the suffix, which is why this
tool checks the shape before trying to resolve it.
Resolving the metadata
To turn a DOI into a citation, this tool queries CrossRef, the largest DOI registration agency,
which covers the great majority of journal articles, books and conference papers. It returns the title, the author
list, the journal or publisher, the year, and often a running citation count. If a DOI validates
but isn't found, it's usually registered with a different agency — DataCite handles many
datasets and theses — so it still resolves at doi.org even though it's absent from CrossRef. That's a
real distinction, not an error, and the result says so rather than pretending the DOI is invalid.
Using and citing a DOI
To open the work, prefix the DOI with https://doi.org/ — the official resolver redirects to the
publisher's live page — and this tool builds that link for you once a DOI checks out. When you cite, quote the DOI
itself rather than a publisher URL: the URL may change, the DOI won't. The syntax validation here is local to your
browser; only the metadata fetch leaves it, going to the public CrossRef API. A DOI identifies a digital work; to
identify a printed book instead, the ISBN lookup
validates and decodes an ISBN the same way.
Frequently asked questions
- A Digital Object Identifier is a permanent identifier for a document — usually a journal article, book chapter, conference paper or dataset. Unlike a web URL, a DOI never changes, so it keeps pointing at the work even if the publisher moves the page. It always begins with "10." followed by a prefix and a suffix, e.g. 10.1038/nphys1170.
- It validates the DOI syntax in your browser, then resolves it through CrossRef to show the title, authors, journal or publisher, publication year and citation count when available. It also links to the official resolver at doi.org.
- The syntax may be valid but the DOI is registered with an agency other than CrossRef — DataCite registers many datasets and theses, for example — so it will not appear in this lookup even though it resolves at doi.org. Very new DOIs can also take time to appear in CrossRef.
- Put it after https://doi.org/ — so https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170 — and the resolver redirects you to the publisher’s current page for that work. This tool links there for you once a DOI validates.
- An ISBN identifies a specific edition of a book as a product; a DOI identifies a digital work — most often an article or chapter — and resolves to a live web location. A book can have both.
- The syntax check runs in your browser. To fetch the metadata, the DOI is sent through our server to the public CrossRef API — a DOI is a public identifier, not personal data, and nothing is stored.