DOAJ Subject Classification Scraper

📚 DOAJ Journals & Subject Classification Scraper

🚀 Export every open-access journal in the Directory of Open Access Journals, with its subject classification, in seconds.

This Actor pulls open-access journals straight from the official DOAJ API and returns each journal with its full LCC (Library of Congress Classification) subject list, ISSNs, publisher, country, license, language, and article-processing-charge policy. No login, no key, no HTML scraping: it reads the same public API that powers doaj.org.

The Directory of Open Access Journals indexes more than 23,000 vetted, peer-reviewed open-access journals from over 130 countries. This scraper turns that catalog into a clean, structured dataset you can filter, join, and analyse.

For	Use it to
Researchers & librarians	Map research fields, build reading lists, audit OA coverage by subject
Publishers & analysts	Benchmark APC policies, licenses, and country distribution
Data teams	Enrich journal metadata with standardized subject codes and ISSNs

📋 What it does

• Queries the DOAJ journals API with any full-text search (title, subject, ISSN, publisher, keyword), or * for the entire catalog.
• Returns one row per journal with its subject classifications and core metadata.
• Paginates automatically up to your maxItems.

💡 Why it matters: the DOAJ website blocks bulk HTML scraping, but its API is open. This Actor uses the API, so runs are fast, complete, and never return a challenge page.

📊 Output

Field	Description
📕 title	Journal title
🔗 url	DOAJ table-of-contents URL
🆔 journalId	DOAJ journal id
🏷️ primarySubject	First LCC subject term
🗂️ subjects	All classifications: { scheme, code, term }
🔡 subjectCodes	LCC codes only
#️⃣ issns	Print and electronic ISSNs
🏢 publisher	Publisher name
🌍 country	Publisher country (ISO code)
🗣️ languages	Publication languages
🔑 keywords	Journal keywords
📄 licenses	License types (e.g. CC BY)
💳 apcCharges	Whether the journal charges an APC
📅 oaStartYear	Year open access began
🕒 lastUpdated	DOAJ record last-updated timestamp
🕓 scrapedAt	When this row was collected

Sample record:

{
  "title": "Revista de Psicología",
  "url": "https://doaj.org/toc/0719-0581",
  "primarySubject": "Psychology",
  "subjects": [{ "scheme": "LCC", "code": "BF1-990", "term": "Psychology" }],
  "subjectCodes": ["BF1-990"],
  "issns": ["0719-0581", "0716-8039"],
  "publisher": "Universidad de Chile",
  "country": "CL",
  "licenses": ["CC BY-NC"],
  "apcCharges": false,
  "oaStartYear": 2007
}

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free account w/ $5 credit.
2. Open the Actor, set a query (or leave * for everything) and maxItems.
3. Run it and download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a DOAJ API key? No. The Actor uses the public DOAJ API.

Can I get every journal? Yes. Use query: "*" and raise maxItems; the catalog is ~23,000 journals.

What does the subject code mean? DOAJ classifies journals with the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). subjectCodes holds the codes; subjects holds the human-readable terms and scheme.

How fresh is the data? Every run reads the DOAJ API live, so it reflects the current catalog.

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This Actor is not affiliated with DOAJ. It reads publicly available data from the DOAJ API for research and analysis. Respect DOAJ's terms and cite the source where appropriate.