More than 80% of the record breaking 1,939 new members we welcomed in 2017 were from non-English speaking countries, and as our member base grows in its diversity, so does the need for us to share information about Crossref and its services in languages appropriate to our changing audience.

We are delighted to report that last year Crossref welcomed a record-breaking 1,939 new members and, because our member base is growing so rapidly in both headcount and geography—with the highest number of new members joining from Asia—we thought it was a good time to reiterate what Crossref is all about, as well as show off a little about the things we are proud to have achieved in 2017.

Hello from sunny Girona! I’m heading to PIDapalooza, the Persistent Identifier festival, as it returns for its second year. It’s all about to kick off. One of the themes this year is “bridging worlds”: how to bring together different communities and the identifiers they use. Something I really enjoyed about PIDapalooza last year was the variety of people who came.

We have listened to the feedback from you, our members, and you’ve told us of a need for local experts to provide support in your timezone and language, and to act as liaisons with the Crossref team. You’ve also asked for an increased number of training events both online and in person close to you, and for more representatives from Crossref at regional industry events.

I was invited recently to present parliamentary evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee on the subject of Research Integrity. For those not familiar with the arcane workings of the British Parliamentary system, a Select Committee is essentially the place where governments, and government bodies, are held to account. So it was refreshing to be invited to a hearing that wasn’t about Brexit.

Hello there. I’m Amanda Bartell, and I joined the Crossref team in mid-October as the new Head of Member Experience. My new Member Experience team will be responsible for metadata users as well as members, onboarding new accounts, supporting existing ones, and making sure that everyone can make the most of Crossref services - an an easy and efficient way.

Crossref’s Open Funder Registry (neé FundRef) now includes over 15 thousand entries. Crossref has over 2 million metadata records that include funding information - 1.7 million of which include an Open Funder Identifier.

Earlier this year we sent out a short survey inviting members to rate our performance. We asked what you think we do well, what we don’t do so well, and one thing we could do to improve our rating. We were delighted to receive 313 responses and relieved that 93% of those were positive (phew!). It was very useful to hear your thoughts and to get such a variety of comments covering Product, Outreach, Marketing and Member Experience.

Following on from our LIVE Annual Meeting in Singapore, my colleague, Susan Collins, and I held a local LIVE event in Yogyakarta thanks to support from Universitas Ahmad Dahlan (UAD), Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo and one of Crossref’s new Sponsoring Affiliates, Relawan Jurnal Indonesia.

PIDs’R’Us and if they’re you, too, please join us for the second PIDapalooza, in Girona, Spain on January 23-24, for a two-day celebration of persistent identifiers. Together, we will achieve the incredible - make a meeting about persistent identifiers and networked research fun!

Continuing our blog series highlighting the uses of Crossref metadata, we talked to Sara Girard and Howard Ratner at CHORUS about the work they’re doing, and how they’re using our REST API as part of their workflow. Introducing CHORUS CHORUS (www.chorusaccess.org) is an innovative non-profit organisation that supports funders, publishers, authors and institutions to deliver public access to articles reporting on funded research.