Why use DOIs?

“There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on forever... money, for instance, or war.” -- Saul Bellow (Canadian born American Novelist, 1915-2005)

A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is to a Web document what ISBN, International Standard Book Number, is to printed books.  It is a registered, unique identifier of a work.

This means that when you find an article of interest and include the DOI in your cite, readers will be able to locate the article no matter how the URL changes in the meantime.

For example, let’s say you find the following article …

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Petroleum Science and Technology, Volume 30, Issue 15, 2012, pages 1619-1628, DOI:10.1080/10916466.2010.509071
Desulfurization From Model of Gasoline by Extraction With Synthesized [BF4]−- and [PF6]−-based Ionic Liquids
N. Farzin Nejad a,b, E. Shams b, M. Adibi c, A. A. Miran Beigi a & S. K. Torkestani a
a Analytical Department, Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran
b Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
c Chemistry and Petrochemicals Division, Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Reports the synthesis and testinf of 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, [OMIM][BF₄], and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [BMIM][PF₆], ionic liquids for their capability to desulfurize model gasoline.
Results demonstrate that the aromatic sulfur compounds with higher π-electron density were favorably adsorbed. They also show that [BF₄]⁻-based ionic liquid displays higher extraction efficiencies than [PF₆]⁻-based ionic liquid. The extractive ability of the imidazolium ionic liquids was dominated by the structure of cation and anion.
Full Text Source (Subscription or Fee): http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10916466.2010.509071
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In this example, the URL for the article is: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10916466.2010.509071

But what if Taylor & Francis does a radical reorg of its Web, and the URL changes?  Or, what if Taylor & Francis ceases to exist, and some other publisher inherits the article?

If you have the DOI, you will be able to find the article with minimal effort.  So, in this example, if you paste DOI:10.1080/10916466.2010.509071 into the Google search box, it will lead you directly to the article.

More information on the DOI concept is available at the Bowker DOI Web: http://www.usdoi.org/index.php?page=why_use_DOI