EMBEDDING DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIERS FOR DATA SETS IN BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATIONS: INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) have become commonplace for use in tracking and linking to publications. At the American Geological Institute (AGI) DOIs for the full-text of publications are routinely embedded in many of its bibliographic databases including: GeoRef (the primary bibliographic service for the geosciences), the Bibliography on Cold Regions Science and Technology, the Antarctic Bibliography, and the Ocean Drilling Citation Database. When embedded in a bibliographic database, DOIs can be used to create active links to the publication’s full-text. At the same time that the use of DOIs in publishing has become almost universal, the use of supplemental online data has also increased. Unfortunately, data sets are often cited using unstable URLs. Extending the use of DOIs to data sets might offer an opportunity to tie publications to data sets in a seamless manner. A preliminary examination of the difficulties and opportunities of embedding DOIs for data sets in citations has been attempted. The series Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results was used as a starting point because the relevant data sets are currently being identified and archived in PANGAEA, an open-access library that archives, publishes and distributes georeferenced data. Each data set in PANGAEA is identified with a DOI. The results of this initial exploration will be presented and thoughts on the opportunities and disadvantages to this approach will be outlined.