Proceedings Citation Guide

Proceedings Repositories Compared: ACL Anthology, ACM DL, IEEE Xplore, PMLR, CEUR-WS and More

Proceedings papers live in many different places, and each place has its own access rules and identifiers. This page describes them neutrally, using facts taken from their own pages.

Last updated 6 November 2026

On this page
  1. What this comparison covers and what it does not
  2. At a glance: what each service is, how access works, which identifiers it uses
  3. How to read the access column
  4. How the identifiers differ
  5. Which identifier goes into a reference?
  6. Common mistakes when choosing a source
  7. Limits and where to verify
  8. Frequently asked questions
  9. Sources and further reading
  10. Related topics

In brief

  • This site is independent and not affiliated with any repository, publisher or index named here.
  • The page ranks nothing: it only says what each service is, how readers get access, and which identifiers it uses.
  • Where a fact could not be confirmed on the organization's own pages, the table says so instead of guessing.
  • The identifier you cite (DOI, volume number, arXiv ID) should be copied from the paper's own record page.

What this comparison covers and what it does not

This page is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any of the organizations below, including CEUR-WS.org, publishers, societies and indexes. It does not rank them, and it makes no claim about the quality of any series.

A repository here means any service that publishes or hosts proceedings papers. Some are publisher libraries. Some are society archives. Others are general-purpose preprint or deposit services. They differ in who runs them, who may deposit, and how readers get the full text.

Every statement in the table was checked on the organization's own website at the time of writing (November 2026). Websites change, so confirm details on the service itself before you rely on them. For how we source facts, see Sources and Methodology.

At a glance: what each service is, how access works, which identifiers it uses

ServiceWhat it isAccess modelIdentifiers
ACL AnthologyLibrary of publications in computational linguistics, speech and natural language processing; hosts papers from official ACL venues and from other organizations.Materials from 2016 onward are licensed CC BY 4.0; earlier materials are CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.Anthology IDs (for example the post-2020 form year.venue-volume.number); DOIs under ACL prefixes for ACL-assigned material, none for third-party material from sister societies.
ACM Digital LibraryDigital library of the Association for Computing Machinery.Not confirmed here. ACM publishes its own access and open access information.Not confirmed here. Copy the DOI shown on the paper's page.
IEEE XploreIEEE's digital library of conference and journal content.Not confirmed here; IEEE's own site was not readable by our tools.Not confirmed here.
Springer (for example LNCS)Publisher series, including Lecture Notes in Computer Science.Not confirmed here; the series page requires a login redirect.Not confirmed here.
PMLRProceedings of Machine Learning Research, formerly JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings; each volume belongs to one workshop or conference.Volumes are published online; the site says authors retain copyright. It names no licence on its front page.Numbered volumes (for example V350); reissued volumes use R numbers; series ISSN 2640-3498 (former ISSN 1938-7228).
OpenReviewNonprofit, cloud-based platform for peer review and publishing; organizers configure how open the review is.Free to read and to submit, with no fees.Not confirmed here.
CEUR-WS.orgPublication service for workshop proceedings in computer science, described on its site as a diamond open-access service run by volunteers and hosted by Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI eV).Open access; the licence for each volume is stated in that volume's index file.Sequential volume numbers (Vol-NNNN); series ISSN 1613-0073; a URN per volume; DOIs for some volumes, with assignment described as being tested.
arXivOpen archive for scholarly articles in eight subject areas; independent nonprofit since 2026; moderated but not peer reviewed.Free to read and to submit.arXiv IDs of the form YYMM.number with an optional version suffix such as v2.
ZenodoGeneral-purpose research repository run by CERN with OpenAIRE as a partner.Open APIs and open content; also accepts closed, restricted and embargoed records.DOIs registered through DataCite; each new version is a separate record with its own identifier.

The table is a snapshot, not a recommendation. A blank in one cell does not mean a service lacks the feature. It means we could not confirm it on the owner's own pages.

How to read the access column

Access terms differ in two ways. The first is who pays. Some services are free for readers and free for authors. Others rely on institutional subscriptions or on author-side charges. The second is what you may do. A free-to-read paper is not automatically free to reuse, so check the licence line.

CEUR-WS.org states that copyright for each item stays with its authors or owners, and that republishing needs their permission. The ACL Anthology states a Creative Commons licence by date range. PMLR states that authors retain copyright. These are three different arrangements, and each affects what you may copy into your own work.

For a deeper look at licences and self-archiving, read Copyright and Licences for Proceedings Papers and Open Access Proceedings.

How the identifiers differ

Each service labels papers differently, and the labels answer different questions.

  • Paper-level IDs point at one paper. Examples are the Anthology ID, the arXiv ID and a DOI.
  • Volume-level IDs point at a whole proceedings book. Examples are PMLR volume numbers and CEUR-WS volume numbers.
  • Series-level IDs point at a recurring publication. An ISSN does this. It does not identify an individual paper.

The ACL Anthology advises using the DOI listed on a paper's page rather than constructing one from its ID, because existing DOIs do not change. That habit works everywhere: copy identifiers, never rebuild them. The page DOI, ISSN, ISBN, URN and ORCID explains each type in detail.

Which identifier goes into a reference?

Most citation styles want a DOI when one exists, and a stable URL when it does not. If the paper has neither, give the proceedings title, volume and publisher, and add the repository URL. The fictional entry below shows an ordinary case with a DOI.

Doe, J., & Roe, R. (2023). An example title of a fictional workshop paper. In A. Editor (Ed.), Proceedings of the Example Workshop on Citation Practice (pp. 1–8). Example Publisher. https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2023.1

This is APA 7th edition format. See How to Cite Workshop Proceedings in APA 7th Edition for the rules behind it. When a repository gives both a DOI and a volume-level link, cite the DOI.

Common mistakes when choosing a source

  • Citing the host instead of the publisher. A deposit in a general repository is not the same as the published proceedings.
  • Mixing versions. A preprint and the final paper can differ. See Preprints, Accepted Manuscripts and Versions of Record.
  • Citing the series ISSN as if it were a paper ID. An ISSN names the series only.
  • Assuming hosting implies review. arXiv, for example, states that it does not peer review material. Hosting is not endorsement.
  • Assuming a repository implies indexing. Indexing is a separate question; see Is a Proceedings Series Indexed in Scopus or Web of Science?

Limits and where to verify

This overview is deliberately short. It omits prices, download counts, rankings and coverage statistics, because those change often and are easy to misstate. It also omits services we could not verify.

To check a claim yourself, open the service's own About, FAQ or policy page. Compare the page date with today's date. For a specific paper, follow the steps in How to Verify That a Citation Is Real and Correct. To discover where a paper might be hosted in the first place, see How to Find Workshop and Conference Proceedings Papers.

Frequently asked questions

Is this site connected to CEUR-WS.org or any publisher?

No. This is an independent guide with no affiliation to CEUR-WS.org, the ACL Anthology, ACM, IEEE, Springer, PMLR, OpenReview, arXiv, Zenodo or any index.

Which repository is best?

This page does not rank services. The right place depends on the field, the venue and the access terms you need.

Do all proceedings papers have a DOI?

No. CEUR-WS.org, for instance, says some volumes have DOIs and that DOI assignment is being tested. When no DOI exists, cite a stable URL.

Does an ISSN identify a paper?

No. An ISSN identifies a serial publication or series, not an individual article.

Is a paper on arXiv peer reviewed?

arXiv states that it moderates submissions for fit and scholarly value but does not peer review them.

Sources and further reading

  1. ACL Anthology — ACL Anthology FAQ (2026)
  2. ACL Anthology — ACL Anthology (2026)
  3. PMLR — Proceedings of Machine Learning Research (2026)
  4. CEUR-WS.org — CEUR Workshop Proceedings (2026)
  5. OpenReview — About OpenReview (2026)
  6. arXiv — About arXiv (2026)
  7. arXiv — arXiv identifier help (2026)
  8. CERN / Zenodo — About Zenodo (2026)