DOI stands for "Digital Object Identifier," which is a unique alphanumeric identifier that publishers may assign to electronic versions of articles, books, and other digital resources to make them easier to find online. DOIs may be written as a URL (web address), which provides a persistent link to the resource's location on the Internet.
Here is an example DOI (10.1037/fsh0000134) written as a URL by adding "https://doi.org/" to the front:
https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000134
DOIs are especially useful for finding the "version of record," or the original published version of an article or book. This eliminates ambiguity about whether you are looking at a copy of the article or book, which may not be identical to the original. DOIs have been widely adopted by publishers and are included in APA style citations when available. For this reason, many of the library's databases allow you to search by DOI. For example, here's how to search by DOI using Web of Science:
When searching by DOI, remove "https://doi.org/" from the beginning of the number. If you do not find the article by DOI, be sure to search for the title and/or author as well. Not all DOIs will search correctly in all databases.
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