Network Working Group J. Levine
Internet-Draft Taughannock Networks
Intended status: Informational February 10, 2014
Expires: August 14, 2014
Assigning Digital Object Identifiers to RFCs
draft-iab-doi-01
Abstract
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a widely used system that
assigns unique identifiers to digital documents that can be queried
and managed in a consistent fashion. We propose a method to assign
DOIs to past and future RFCs.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 14, 2014.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Levine Expires August 14, 2014 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs February 2014
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Structure and resolution of DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. DOIs for RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. The process of assigning DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1. Getting a DOI prefix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2. Retroactively assigning DOIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.3. Assigning DOIs to new RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.4. Use of DOIs in RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A.1. Changes from -00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a widely used system that
assigns unique identifiers to digital documents that can be queried
and managed in a consistent fashion. The structure of DOIs is
defined by ISO 26324:2012 [ISO-DOI] and is implemented by a group of
registration agencies coordinated by the International DOI
Foundation.
Each DOI is accompanied by metadata about the object, including one
or more URIs where the object can be found. The DOI system also
provides many features not relevant to RFCs, such as the ability to
update the metadata after the DOI is assigned, and for organizations
to maintain local caches of metadata, e.g., a university or corporate
library that tracks its copies of purchased documents so subsequent
users don't buy them again.
The wide use of DOIs suggests that even though RFCs can be downloaded
directly from the IETF for free, organizations that use DOIs can have
trouble locating non-DOI documents. DOIs with metadata that points
to the existing free online RFCs would make RFCs easier to find.
Some scholarly publishers accept DOIs as references in published
documents, and some versions of bibtex can automatically retrieve the
bibliographic data for a DOI and format it. Hence DOIs would make
RFCs easier to cite.
2. Structure and resolution of DOIs
DOIs are an application of the handle system defined by RFCs
[RFC3650], [RFC3651], and [RFC3652]. A DOI for an RFC might be
10.123456/rfc1234
Levine Expires August 14, 2014 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs February 2014
The first part of a DOI is the number 10, which means a DOI within
the handle system, a dot, and a unique number assigned to a
publisher, in this example 123456. This part is the DOI prefix.
Following that is a slash and a text string assigned by the
publisher, called the DOI suffix. A reasonable way to assign DOIs
would be to use the familiar series names and numbers, e.g., rfc1234,
bcp100, or std11. (DOIs are case-insensitive.)
Although the handle system has its own protocol described in
[RFC3652], the usual way to look up a DOI is to use web lookup. CNRI
provides a Firefox plugin that adds a "doi:" URI scheme. Lacking
that, one can use a public http proxy, usually http://dx.doi.org, so
the sample DOI above could be looked up at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.123456/rfc1234
Whenever a publisher assigns a DOI, it provides the metadata for the
object (henceforth called a document, since that what they are in
this context) to its registration agency which then makes it
available to clients that look up DOIs. Publishers have considerable
flexibility as to what actually resides at the URI(s) that a DOI
refers to. Sometimes it's the document itself, while for commercial
publishers it's typically a page with the abstract and bibliographic
information, and some way to buy the actual document. Since some
RFCs are in multiple formats (e.g., Postscript and text) an
appropriate URI would be that of the RFC Editor's info page that has
the RFC's abstract and links to the document in various formats.
Hence the URI above would be set to redirect to
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1234
More information on the structure and use of DOIs is in the DOI
Handbook [DOI-HB].
3. DOIs for RFCs
Once the RFC series has DOIs assigned, it would be a good idea to
include the DOI in the XML boilerplate of each RFC, which would both
permit it to be displayed if a rendering engine wants to do that, and
aid software that does things with DOIs. Online databases and
indexes that include RFCs would be updated to include the DOI, e.g.
the ACM Digital Library. (A practical advantage of this is that the
DOI would link directly to the IETF, rather than perhaps to a copy of
an RFC behind a paywall.)
Since RFCs are immutable, existing RFCs still wouldn't mention their
own DOIs within the RFC itself, but putting the DOIs into indexes
would still provide value.
Levine Expires August 14, 2014 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs February 2014
4. The process of assigning DOIs
There are three phases to assigning DOIs to RFCs, getting a DOI
prefix, retroactively assigning DOIs to existing documents, and
updating the publication process to assign DOIs as new RFCs are
published.
4.1. Getting a DOI prefix
There are ten registration agencies [DOI-RA] that assign DOI
prefixes. Most of them serve specialized audiences or limited
geographic areas, but there are a few that handle scholarly and
technical materials. All registration agencies charge for DOIs to
defray the cost of maintaining the metadata databases. The prices
are fairly low, on the order of $660/year for membership, 15 cents
per document deposit fees for a bulk upload of the backfile (the
existing RFCs), and $1/per document to deposit them as they are
published.
4.2. Retroactively assigning DOIs
Other than paying the deposit fees, assigning DOIs to all of the
existing RFCs is primarily a software problem. We'd need tools to
extract or create the metadata for all of the RFCs and submit it to
the registration agency using the agency's online API. Where we are
aware of indexes and databases that include RFCs, we would try to get
them to include the DOI.
4.3. Assigning DOIs to new RFCs
As new RFCs are published, the publication process will add steps to
collect and submit the metadata to the registration agency.
4.4. Use of DOIs in RFCs
The DOI agency requests that documents that are assigned DOIs in turn
include DOIs when possible when referring to other organizations'
documents. Hence it would be a good idea to add a DOI field to the
xml2rfc reference entity, and request that authors provide DOIs when
possible.
Since it is usually possible to retrieve the bibliographic
information for a document from its DOI (see the discussion of bibtex
above), it might also be worth adding this feature to xml2rfc, so a
reference with only a DOI could be automatically fetched and
expanded.
Levine Expires August 14, 2014 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft DOIs for RFCs February 2014
5. Informative References
[DOI-HB] International DOI Foundation, "DOI Handbook", April 2012,
<http://www.doi.org/hb.html>.
[DOI-RA] International DOI Foundation, "DOI Registration Agencies",
July 2013,
<http://www.doi.org/registration_agencies.html>.
[ISO-DOI] International Organization for Standardization (ISO), "ISO
26324:2012 Information and documentation -- Digital object
identifier system", 2012,
<http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=43506>.
[RFC3044] Rozenfeld, S., "Using The ISSN (International Serial
Standard Number) as URN (Uniform Resource Names) within an
ISSN-URN Namespace", RFC 3044, January 2001.
[RFC3650] Sun, S., Lannom, L., and B. Boesch, "Handle System
Overview", RFC 3650, November 2003.
[RFC3651] Sun, S., Reilly, S., and L. Lannom, "Handle System
Namespace and Service Definition", RFC 3651, November
2003.
[RFC3652] Sun, S., Reilly, S., Lannom, L., and J. Petrone, "Handle
System Protocol (ver 2.1) Specification", RFC 3652,
November 2003.
Appendix A. Change Log
A.1. Changes from -00 to -01
DOI in the xml, not necessarily in the text
Use of DOI in RFCs section.
Author's Address
John Levine
Taughannock Networks
PO Box 727
Trumansburg, NY 14886
Phone: +1 831 480 2300
Email: standards@taugh.com
URI: http://jl.ly
Levine Expires August 14, 2014 [Page 5]
