# Crossref Scraper - DOI, Citations, Academic Papers (`gio21/crossref-scraper`) Actor

Search and fetch academic article metadata (DOIs, authors, citations, journals) from the Crossref REST API. No key required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/gio21/crossref-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Gio](https://apify.com/gio21) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Developer tools, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.50 / 1,000 work scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Crossref Scraper

Search and fetch **academic article metadata** (DOIs, authors, citations, journals, abstracts) from the Crossref REST API. No key required.

For literature reviews, citation analysis, journal monitoring, research dashboards.

### Modes

| Mode | What |
|------|------|
| `search` | Keyword search across the whole Crossref corpus |
| `by_dois` | Lookup specific DOIs |
| `by_journal_issn` | All works of a journal by ISSN |

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `mode` | String (required) | One of the above. |
| `query` | String | Search keyword. |
| `dois` | Array | DOIs. |
| `issn` | String | Journal ISSN. |
| `filterFrom` | String | YYYY pub-date floor. |
| `maxItems` | Integer | Default 25, max 1000. |
| `mailto` | String | Your contact email — Crossref's "polite pool" gives higher throughput. |

### Output

```json
{
  "doi": "10.1038/nature14539", "type": "journal-article",
  "title": "Deep learning",
  "authors": ["Yann LeCun","Yoshua Bengio","Geoffrey Hinton"], "authorsCount": 3,
  "journal": "Nature", "ISSN": ["0028-0836","1476-4687"],
  "publisher": "Springer Science and Business Media LLC",
  "issued": "2015-5-28", "year": 2015, "volume": "521", "page": "436-444",
  "citationCount": 65000, "referencesCount": 137,
  "subjects": ["Multidisciplinary"],
  "url": "http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14539"
}
```

### Pricing

$0.0005/work.

If this actor helped you, please leave a review on the Apify Store.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

What to fetch from Crossref.

## `query` (type: `string`):

For search mode.

## `dois` (type: `array`):

For by\_dois mode.

## `issn` (type: `string`):

For by\_journal\_issn mode (e.g. '0028-0836' for Nature).

## `filterFrom` (type: `string`):

Optional: only works published from this year onwards.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Default 25. Crossref hard-caps page size at 1000.

## `mailto` (type: `string`):

Crossref recommends a contact email for higher throughput.

## `debug` (type: `boolean`):

Verbose logging.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "transformer attention is all you need",
  "dois": [
    "10.1038/nature14539"
  ],
  "maxItems": 25,
  "debug": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

doi, type, title, authors, journal, ISSN, issued, abstract, citationCount, referencesCount, publisher, url.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "transformer attention is all you need",
    "dois": [
        "10.1038/nature14539"
    ],
    "issn": "",
    "filterFrom": "",
    "mailto": ""
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("gio21/crossref-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "transformer attention is all you need",
    "dois": ["10.1038/nature14539"],
    "issn": "",
    "filterFrom": "",
    "mailto": "",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("gio21/crossref-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "transformer attention is all you need",
  "dois": [
    "10.1038/nature14539"
  ],
  "issn": "",
  "filterFrom": "",
  "mailto": ""
}' |
apify call gio21/crossref-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,gio21/crossref-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/xPfPJYyA2mIowGWz3/builds/XThghPdCUqS7voqQQ/openapi.json