Hello, and thanks for your question.
I think the ‘select’ parameter in the REST API is what you’re after, but you need to narrow down which DOIs/works you’re looking for before you use it.
Select won’t work if you specify an individual DOI, like 10.1007/978-3-540-68161-8_1
In that case, you can only get the full record using
https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1007/978-3-540-68161-8_1
But, for example, say you wanted to get metadata for all DOIs in that journal “Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht”.
You could filter by its ISSN and then use the select parameter like this:
https://api.crossref.org/works?filter=issn:0172-4770&select=title,author,published&rows=1000
That will return article title, authors, and publication date for the first 1000 records out of a total 2765 records containing that journal’s ISSN 0172-4770.
To page through to the subsequent records, you’d need to use the cursor or offset parameters, because there’s a 1000 record limit per request.
If you want to narrow down the content you’re looking for in other ways than by journal, let me know, and I’ll be happy to run through a few other examples.
You also might find these posts useful
Getting Started with REST API Queries
Using Postman for API Queries
-Shayn