Data sources

Overview of the data sources used by the Publish or Perish software

Publish or Perish is a software program that retrieves and analyzes academic citations from external data sources; it does not include a database of its own.

The currently available data sources are:

Data source Notes
Crossref Freely available
Google Scholar Freely available
Google Scholar Profile Freely available
Microsoft Academic Requires a free subscription from Microsoft
Note: Microsoft discontinued MA after 31 December 2021
OpenAlex Freely available. Currently (June 2022) in early stages of development with limited search options. We will track future developments.
PubMed Freely available
Scopus Requires a free API key from Elsevier
Semantic Scholar Requires a free API key from Semantic Scholar
Web of Science Requires a subscription from Clarivate (typically provided by your organisation)
External data import Allows importing of externally obtained data from Web of Science, RefMan, EndNote, and many others.

Please note: We cannot guarantee the continued availability of any of these data sources. The Publish or Perish software has been continuously maintained and updated since 2006, and during that time we have seen many changes to data sources and their content.

Although we have been able to keep Publish or Perish compatible with whatever data sources and information were available at any time, unforeseen circumstances may force us to (reluctantly) abandon one or more data sources.

Your continued support and advocacy of both the Publish or Perish software and the external data sources that we use will help to ensure that you and we can keep using Publish or Perish in the future. Thanks in advance for your support to Publish or Perish.

Which data source to use?

See Quick introduction for an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the various data sources. Please note that any restrictions and constraints in these data-sources are inherent to these sources. Publish or Perish doesn't restrict or otherwise change results, it is simply an interface to these data sources.

If you require specific information about how to use these data sources for author searches, journal searches, general/keyword searches, or affiliation searches refer to the manual pages for this.

What data sources can PoP search in?

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