Forget-me-not! How to avoid abandoning DOIs connected with previous title records when transferring a journal to a new publisher - Membership Ticket of the Month - November 2024

2025 approaches!

Each December, many publishers message us with requests to transfer their journals to new publishers at the start of the new year. Transferring ownership of DOIs is a fundamental strength of Crossref’s systems because it allows journals and other materials to move from publisher to publisher, without the need to change the DOI itself.

We have guidance about how title transfers work and who can request a title transfer but I wanted to focus on a small point that sometimes gets overlooked in the title transfer process: previous title records.

When a member registers the first article DOI for a journal, this creates a “title record” in our system, connected with the journal’s ISSN(s) and/or a journal-level DOI. We now consider this member to be the “owner” of the title record and we cannot transfer the journal and its DOIs to a new publisher without the current owner’s consent. Our system also prevents any other member from registering DOIs for a title with the same ISSN(s) - this cuts down on the possibility of duplicate DOIs being created.

Sometimes, a publisher may decide to rename their journal. Maybe the publication schedule changes (an Annual becomes a Quarterly) or a journal shifts focus from publishing in one language to another (a Zeitschrift becomes a Journal). If the renaming is substantial as in the given examples, best practice is to obtain a new ISSN from the ISSN Centre. Then, when registering DOIs for newly published articles, the member should use the new title/ISSN(s) combo which will automatically create a new title record in our system.

Let’s consider an example. The Royal Society of Horses publishes Transactions in Horse Research (eISSN XXXX-XXXX) for five volumes. They decide to update the journal’s name to Horses Quarterly, necessitating a new ISSN (YYYY-YYYY), and publish five more volumes under the new title (and under a new title record in our system).

Maintaining two separate title records (one for the first five volumes under the old title, another for the second five volumes under a new title) is important. Scholars are likely to cite materials under the conditions in which they were published, so it’s crucial that DOIs be linked with metadata records that reflect those conditions. If a scholar cited an article in volume 2, they would cite it as part of Transactions in Horse Research, while they would cite an article in volume 7 as a component of Horses Quarterly. Accurate citations help other researchers trace the flow of knowledge and they help our automated processes accurately detect matching citations in research.

If a member wishes to transfer ownership of a journal title in the Crossref system to another member, they need to either complete our contact form, selecting “Transferring journal titles between members”, or email us at member@crossref.org. After receiving permission from the disposing publisher, we conduct the transfer of ownership for you and then the acquiring publisher may proceed to a) update the metadata for the existing DOIs and b) register new DOIs for any articles that don’t yet have them.

Let’s return to our example. The Royal Society of Horses sells Horses Quarterly to Jockey Publications. The Royal Society emails us to confirm the transfer of Horses Quarterly and we action it. Now Jockey Publications is the manager of all the DOIs for the journal…right?

Not exactly. If the transferring publisher doesn’t alert us about the journal’s previous title/ISSNs, we won’t necessarily know to transfer them too. Remember, our system considers Transactions in Horse Research and Horses Quarterly to be two separate journals because they have two distinct titles, even if they are treated by the publisher as one continuous publication. If the DOIs for the previous title record aren’t also transferred alongside the new title record then the new publisher will not be able to manage those DOIs. This can lead to the accidental creation of duplicate DOIs and the possibility that the DOIs for the old title record are not maintained. What a mess!

How can you avoid this problem? Easy! When providing permission for a title transfer for a journal you have ceased publishing, please just confirm if the journal was ever published under another name or with any other ISSNs (see below). We’ll check our system to confirm if there are any other relevant title records, confirm with you if these should be moved too, and then transfer the journals and DOIs (all of them!) to the new publisher.

Hi Crossref,

I’m Equus Giddyup, president of the Royal Society of Horses (and the primary contact on our Crossref membership). Please transfer our journal Horses Quarterly (eISSN YYYY-YYYY) and its existing DOIs to Jockey Publications (DOI prefix: 10.#####) effective 1 January 2025. The journal was also published as Transactions in Horse Research (eISSN XXXX-XXXX) from 2017-2021; please also transfer this title record and its DOIs to Jockey Publications.

If you have any questions, please just let us know in the comments or by emailing member@crossref.org.

Yeehaw!
—Collin :horse:

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