io.github.SMABoundless/crossref
Search and retrieve scholarly metadata from the Crossref REST API
Open source Open in the app JSON README (API)
About
Search and retrieve scholarly metadata from the Crossref REST API
Details
- Kind
- MCP servers
- Topic
- Developer tools
- Publisher
- smaboundless
- Origin
- official
- Category
- ferramentas
- Transport
- local
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Open pull requests
- 1
- Last push
- 2026-08-05T04:24:07Z
- Repository state
- ativo
- Language
- Python
- License
- MIT
- Added
- 2026-08-29 03:02:13
- Updated
- 2026-08-29 03:02:13
- Origin id
io.github.SMABoundless/crossref
README
# CrossRef MCP Server
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for searching and retrieving scholarly metadata from the [CrossRef](https://www.crossref.org/) REST API — 150M+ records across all publishers and disciplines.
Built with [FastMCP](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk). No API key required.
## Tools
| Tool | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `crossref_search` | Search works by keyword with filtering by year, type, and sort options |
| `crossref_title_search` | Search specifically by title for more precise matching |
| `crossref_author_search` | Search for works by a specific author, optionally combined with keywords |
| `crossref_doi_lookup` | Retrieve full metadata for a work by DOI |
| `crossref_journal_search` | Search for journals by name |
| `crossref_journal_works` | Get works published in a specific journal by ISSN |
| `crossref_funder_search` | Search for funding organizations |
| `crossref_references` | Get the reference list cited by a specific work |
| `crossref_export_ris` | Export recent results as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.) |
| `crossref_export_bibtex` | Export recent results as BibTeX |
## Setup
### 1. Install
```bash
cd crossref-mcp-server
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
```
### 2. Configure environment (optional)
CrossRef doesn't require an API key, but setting a mailto address gives you access to their faster "polite" API pool:
```bash
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your email address
```
### 3. Add to Claude Desktop
Add this to your `claude_desktop_config.json`:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"crossref": {
"command": "/path/to/crossref-mcp-server/venv/bin/python",
"args": ["/path/to/crossref-mcp-server/server.py"],
"env": {
"CROSSREF_MAILTO": "your.email@example.com"
}
}
}
}
```
Or if using Claude Code CLI:
```bash
claude mcp add crossref \
/path/to/crossref-mcp-server/venv/bin/python \
/path/to/crossref-mcp-server/server.py \
-e CROSSREF_MAILTO=your.email@example.com
```
## Usage examples
Once connected, you can ask Claude things like:
- "Search CrossRef for recent papers on transformer architectures"
- "Find works by Jane Smith on educational psychology from 2020-2024"
- "Look up the metadata for DOI 10.1038/nature14539"
- "Search for journals about machine learning"
- "Get the reference list for this paper and export as RIS for Zotero"
## License
MIT
<!-- mcp-name: io.github.SMABoundless/crossref -->