Crossref Journals Scraper
Pricing
from $19.00 / 1,000 results
Crossref Journals Scraper
Scrapes journal-level metadata from Crossref by search term. Returns each journal as a flat row with its title, ISSN, publisher, and deposited article counts.
Pricing
from $19.00 / 1,000 results
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ParseForge
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5 days ago
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Crossref Journals Scraper
Scrape journal metadata from Crossref by search term, up to a million records per run. Each journal comes with its ISSN, publisher, total articles, and subject areas. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Finding every journal in a research field usually means clicking through pages of a web portal or wrestling with an API that needs a polite token. This actor reads the public Crossref REST API directly, so you can pull journal-level metadata for a topic, publisher, or keyword in one batch. It returns a flat list of journals, each with its identifiers, publisher name, and counts of deposited works.
| Who uses it | What they scrape Crossref for |
|---|---|
| Librarians | Build a holdings list of active journals in a discipline for collection development. |
| Publishers | Benchmark their own journal portfolio against similar titles in the same subject area. |
| Research analysts | Map the publication landscape of a niche field by identifying all indexed journals. |
| Scholarly communication teams | Audit which journals in their institution's output are indexed in Crossref. |
What it does
This Actor collects journal records from Crossref matching a search term and returns each one as a flat row with its title, ISSN, publisher, and work counts.
- 🔍 Search by keyword: matches journal titles, publishers, and other metadata via the Crossref query parameter.
- 📊 Journal-level summary: returns total deposited articles, current articles, and backfile counts per title.
- 📋 Flat row output: every journal is one row, ready for pivot tables, deduplication, or a catalog import.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with Crossref data
📚 Build a subject bibliography.
A librarian searches for 'marine biology' and exports every matching journal to seed a new faculty reading list.
🏢 Audit a publisher's footprint.
A publishing analyst searches for their company name to verify which of their journals are correctly registered in Crossref.
📈 Track journal growth over time.
A researcher pulls journal metadata quarterly, comparing the total articles count to spot fast-growing titles in a field.
🔗 Enrich an institutional repository.
A repository manager matches local journal titles against Crossref records to pull in standard ISSNs and publisher names.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| No API key | Reads the public Crossref API with polite rate-limiting built in. |
| Journal-level counts | See total deposited articles, current articles, and backfile articles for each title. |
| Fixed schema | Every run returns the same columns, so you can append runs safely. |
| Large pulls | Paid users can request up to one million journal records in a single run. |
How it compares
No other Store actor targets Crossref the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.
| Crossref Journals Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When Crossref changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with a search term that matches journal titles or publishers, and set a maximum number of journals to return. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
A larger pull:
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the Crossref Journals Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to Crossref through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results for my search term?
Try a broader or shorter keyword. The query matches journal titles and publishers, so a very specific phrase might not match any registered journal. Check your spelling and try the same term on the Crossref website to confirm results exist.
The run stopped before reaching my max items limit.
The actor stops when Crossref returns no more matching journals. If you set a high maximum but the search term only matches 50 journals, the run will finish after those 50.
Some journals are missing their ISSN or publisher.
Crossref records are supplied by publishers, and some entries are incomplete. Missing fields will appear as empty values in your dataset. This is a limitation of the source data, not the scraper.
I got a timeout or rate-limit error.
The actor includes automatic retries and polite delays. If you still see an error, wait a few minutes and retry. For very large pulls, the run may take longer but should complete.
Can I search for journals in languages other than English?
Yes. The query parameter accepts any text, so you can search for journal titles in Chinese, Spanish, or other languages using native characters.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I need a Crossref API key or account? | No. This actor uses the public Crossref REST API with polite auto-throttling. You do not need to register or provide a token. |
| What does the search term match against? | The query parameter searches across journal titles, publishers, and other bibliographic metadata that Crossref indexes. It is the same free-text search you would use on the Crossref website. |
| How many journals can I pull in one run? | Free users get a preview of up to 10 journals. Paid Apify users can set the maximum up to 1,000,000 journals per run. |
| Does this return individual articles or journals? | This actor returns journal-level records only. It gives you the journal title, ISSN, publisher, and counts of deposited works, not the article metadata itself. |
| What output formats are supported? | You can export your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform. |
| Can I filter by subject area or publisher? | The search term is a free-text query, so you can type a publisher name or a subject keyword. There are no separate subject or publisher filter fields. |
| Is the data live or cached? | Every run queries the Crossref API live, so you get the metadata as it exists at that moment. |
| What is the difference between total articles and current articles? | Crossref reports total deposited articles across all years, current articles for the most recent year, and backfile articles for older content. The actor returns all three counts when available. |
| Can I run this on a schedule? | Yes. You can set up an Apify schedule to run the actor daily, weekly, or monthly to track changes in journal metadata. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Crossref. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
