Thomas & Thomas, and Lena.
I was so glad to hear that you're working on this project. I’ve been working on—retrieving DOIs for citations that don’t include them. I’m really glad to see others tackling the same problem!
The citation list I worked with included a mix of publication types—books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers, and who knows what else. I experimented with both the Scopus API and the Crossref API. With Scopus, I ran into the daily quota limit pretty quickly, but the results seemed fairly accurate. Crossref, on the other hand, appeared to return a DOI for every citation—even those that shouldn’t have one. My guess is that it simply returns the DOI from whatever is highest on the result list. To test this, I tried a reverse query—sending a DOI and checking whether the title and author matched—but they often didn’t.
I had a more urgent issue come up and had to pause work on it, but I look forward to hearing from you—and hopefully collaborating or exchanging ideas in the future.
Best,
Sarah G. Park
Mathematics and Computational Sciences Librarian
Head, Mathematics Library
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(217) 265-5368
gpark1_at_illinois.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> On Behalf Of Thomas Guignard
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2025 1:17 PM
To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] DOI Citation Verifier MCP Server
Hi Thomas
That's very cool, thanks for working on this and sharing your progress.
Have you tried using OpenAlex in addition to Crossref for looking for references without DOI?
On the vendor side, I think I've seen that ExLibris is working on a MCP platform for libraries to string together their own agents, including querying their knowledge base for articles. No idea what the current status of it is, and of course it will very likely be limited to ExL subscribers...
(also) Thomas
On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:53 AM Lena G. Bohman < 0000012edd993013-dmarc-request_at_lists.clir.org> wrote:
> Try cross ref? They have an API.
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.crossref.org/__;!!DZ3fjg!7Uqna
> tyQqRtRP3ztkC_qdCTm0zp8syQgqiICa65ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3Bcq
> VJop2iq4YGs8IDkdk$
> Lena
>
> Lena Bohman
> Senior Data Management and Research Impact Librarian Long Island
> Jewish - Forest Hills Liaison Donald and Barbara Zucker School of
> Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell [Learn to use Open Athens on the
> Library’s YouTube channel]<
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ7
> OuwLufMv1_8OtFC8xzRUAXpXTqYInG__;!!DZ3fjg!7UqnatyQqRtRP3ztkC_qdCTm0zp8
> syQgqiICa65ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGmYDBoUH$ >
> ________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG> on behalf of Thomas
> Scharff <scharff_thomas_at_WHEATONCOLLEGE.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, October 27, 2025 11:18 AM
> To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG <CODE4LIB_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG>
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] DOI Citation Verifier MCP Server
>
> [You don't often get email from scharff_thomas_at_wheatoncollege.edu.
> Learn why this is important at
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentificat
> ion__;!!DZ3fjg!7UqnatyQqRtRP3ztkC_qdCTm0zp8syQgqiICa65ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36
> kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGilQ1QoY$ ]
>
> EXTERNAL MESSAGE
>
> Hi folks,
>
> A couple weeks ago, I found the Open Library's MCP server <
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook
> .com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fsmithery.ai*2Fserver*2F*408enSmith*2Fmcp-open-
> library&data=05*7C02*7Clena.g.bohman*40HOFSTRA.EDU*7C49dec6519cb24ee5f
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> m0zp8syQgqiICa65ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGhWUZgqF$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://smithery.ai/server/@8enSmith/mcp-
> open-library__;!!DZ3fjg!7UqnatyQqRtRP3ztkC_qdCTm0zp8syQgqiICa65ZZDf2ly
> eQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGtCWYHpi$ >> and hooked it up to Claude to make it stop hallucinating book titles when I use it for readers'
> advisory.
>
> Well, then I went looking for an MCP server that could do the same for
> articles and, finding none that really suited my use case (some
> providers have them for their own content), decided to make my own <
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook
> .com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fsmithery.ai*2Fserver*2F*40tfscharff*2Fdoi-mcp&
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> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://smithery.ai/server/@tfscharff/doi-mcp__;!!DZ3fjg!7UqnatyQqRtRP3ztkC_qdCTm0zp8syQgqiICa65ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGlv3t2Z-$ >>.
>
> The obvious drawback is that it's DOI-based, so it won't return
> articles without a DOI while using the MCP. I would expect that to be
> a bigger drawback in humanities than in other disciplines.
>
> You can always ask it not to use the MCP. You'll get hallucinations
> again, but you'll also get real results that don't have a DOI. Maybe
> at that point, you reach out to your librarian. 😁
>
> Let me know if you have any suggestions for how I can improve it! I'm
> totally new to this. I just learned about MCP servers two weeks ago!
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> *Thomas Scharff*
> <
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook
> .com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Flibrary.wheatoncollege.edu*2Fprf.php*3Faccount
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> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://library.wheatoncollege.edu/prf.ph
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> ZZDf2lyeQbCuOe36kWuZ9TAb9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGlEWhs99$ >>
> (he/him/his)
>
> *Director of Discovery & Access*
>
> Madeleine Clark Wallace Library <
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> .com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Flibrary.wheatoncollege.edu*2F&data=05*7C02*7Cl
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> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://library.wheatoncollege.edu/__;!!D
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> b9GUOIq7w3BcqVJop2iq4YGnHM8bWn$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wheatoncollege.edu/__;!!DZ3fjg!7U
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--
Thomas Guignard
Library technology & open data consultant tgconsulting.ca
Received on Thu Oct 30 2025 - 15:09:37 EDT