The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview

The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview
1. Introduction
The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service is considered as a central facility in the field of
astronomy in terms of bibliographic research. Moreover, The ADS is directly related with the major
journals of astronomy and the major data centers which is used by 20,000 scholars including 110000
articles having 1100000 pages. ( Boyace 1996)
2.The current system
At present,the ADS has 4 semi autonomous abstract services including Astronomy, Instrumentation,
Physics and Astronomy Preprints.
To elaborate,
2.1) Abstracts
The ADS was started with the abstracts from the NASA STI database, which became the union of the
International Aerospace Abstracts and the NASA Scientific and Technical Abstracts and Reports
(NASA STAR) While the STI branch cut back on their abstracting of the journal literature and
researchers still get abstracts of NASA reports and other materials from them.The are around 500 000
astronomy articles indexed in the ADS. (Demleitner et al. 1999)
2.2) Bitmaps
All of the major journals of astronomy are available online free of cost and most of the time bitmaps of
current articles are uploaded to get online after certain waiting intervals for the protection of financial
integrity of the journal. This work is beginning with a collaboration with the Harvard
Preservation Project (Eichhorn et al. 1997; Corbin & Coletti 1995)
3) Use of the system
In September 199,440 000 queries are made by ADS users and obtained 8 000 000
bibliographic references, 75 000 full-text articles, and 275 000 abstracts. Of the 75 000 full-
text articles accessed through the ADS in September 1998, already 33% were via pointers to
the electronic journals. This number increased to 52% in March 1999.
ADS users access and print (either to the screen, or to paper) more actual pages than are printed in the
press runs of all but the very largest journals of astronomy. In September 1998, 472 621 page images
were downloaded from the ADS archive of scanned bitmaps. About 75% of these were sent directly to
a printer, 22% were viewed on the computer screen, and 2% were downloaded into files; FAXing and
viewing thumbnail images make up the rest.(D.J. Coletti & E.M. Bashinka 1998, personal
communication)
4) How the astronomical literature is used

Astronomy could be considered unique, in that it already has an integrated electronic information
resource (ADS) having electronic access to nearly all the modern journal literaturewhich is used by a
large fraction of practitioners in the field, worldwide.(E.Owens 1997, personal communication).
5) The impact of the ADS on astronomy
It is difficult to judge the impact of scientific work. For scientific programs citation histories, personal
honors and awards and a measure of impact could be obtained by success of students. The ADS is
perhaps unique among large support projects in that a reasonably accurate quantitative estimate of its
impact can be made. This is because many of the services the ADS provides are just more efficient
methods of doing things astronomers have long done and found worth the time it took to do them.
5.1)Acknowledgements
There are about a dozen individuals at the Strasbourg Observatory and the Strasbourg Data Center to
thank, too many to thank individually. The data services provided by them are at the heart of the new
astronomy; their collaboration with the ADS has been both very fruitful, and a great joy.
Peter Boyce, Evan Owens, and the electronic Astrophysical Journal project staff have had the vision
necessary to do things first. Their collaboration has been important to the success of the ADS.
References
Accomazzi A., Eichhorn G., Grant C.S., Kurtz M.J., Murray S.S., 2000, A&AS 143, 85,
ARCHITECTURE Adorf H.-M., Busch E.K., 1988, Intelligent access to a bibliographic full text database,
Astronomy from Large Databases, ESO Conf. Proc. 28, Murtagh F. and Heck A.(eds.), p. 143 Adorf H.-
M., Albrecht R., Johnson M.D., Rampazzo R., 1988,Towards heterogeneous distributed very large
Databases, ESO Conf. Proc. 28, Murtagh F. and Heck A. (eds.).

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The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview

2.The current system

3) Use of the system

4) How the astronomical literature is used

5) The impact of the ADS on astronomy

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