Discrepancy in Subjects between Public and Polite REST API

Hello Crossref,

We’ve recently encountered a discrepancy in the subjects returned by the Crossref REST API, specifically when comparing results from the Public and Polite API responses.

https://api.crossref.org/works/10.36347/sjams.2022.v10i11.034
=>
"subject": [
  "Education",
  "Cultural Studies"
]
https://api.crossref.org/works/10.36347/sjams.2022.v10i11.034?mailto=GroovyBib@example.org
=>
"subject": [
  "Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering",
  "Metals and Alloys",
  "Strategy and Management",
  "Mechanical Engineering"
]

Here are a few more DOIs with similar inconsistencies:

  • 10.2147/copd.s379774
  • 10.3233/bpl-190095
  • 10.1199/tab.0155

Is this a known issue, or can anyone provide insight into this discrepancy?

Hello, and thanks for your question.

There are a number of known issues with the subject values in the REST API. Because of that, we’re looking into how we can either remove them entirely or replace them with something more flexible and updatable.

I don’t see this specific discrepancy noted though, so I will pass that example along to our metadata retrieval product manager and technical team.