See also: DOI

DIGITAL Object To identify , DOI , of the English is literally numerical identifier of object , was a mechanism of identification of digitized resources, like a film, a report/ratio, etc It was thus an alternative to URI.

A DOI is a particular case of identifier Handle. It is at the same time the mechanism of naming of the resources and a protocol of resolution of the identifiers in more concrete addresses.

The principal motivation to try to replace URI was apparently their lack of permanence (a URL changes too easily and it is too concrete, too related to a localization) and the principal motivation to try to replace DNS seems to have been the desire to invent a new protocol, which would not have to support the heritage, in particular administrative (the system of ICANN and the current registers) of the DNS.

The protocol of resolution, a competitor of DNS, is described in RFC 3652. RFC 3651 described the mechanism of naming and the 3650 architecture. The rare deployments of DOI almost never used Handle (which disappeared today) but rather an accessible translator on the Web via a URI as http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00223-003-0070-0 which will automatically return you towards the desired article.

For example hdl: cnri.dlib/december95 is an identifier Handle and doi: 10.1340/309registries a DOI (in the world DOI , one often omits the label doi: thus one would write 10.1340/309registries).

10.XXX is the prefix . It identifies the register or Naming Authority . All that is after the bar obliques/depends on the register. DOI thus has an infrastructure social (registers and offices of recording - Registration Agencies ) well with him. The goal is, by example, to ensure the persistence of the identifiers.

At the end of a DOI , one finds:

• the méta-information (restrictions of use or copyright, for example), described by a data model common to all the DOI, the indecs Dated Dictionary ,

• an address or physical localization (in general a URL), the translator referred to above thus redirects towards this URL,
• various information like the authority of naming.

See too

• URI

• DNS
• European commission

; External bonds

• the official site
• '' DOI Handbook '', a full rotation (in English)

Simple: DIGITAL object to identify