The Tenth Anniversary of Assigning DOI Names to Scientific Data and a Five Year History of DataCite

As part of a project initiated by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) assigned its first DOI names to scientific data in summer 2004. The goal was to use persistent identifiers as part of a broader effort to make scientific datasets citable research outputs. The effort begun by TIB led to the creation and funding of DataCite on 1 December 2009. During the past five years DataCite has grown into a global consortium that has assigned over four million DOI names to scientific datasets and other research artefacts. It is a successful cooperative effort led by scientists, librarians and researchers. This article highlights its development and gives an overview of DataCite's recent work.