%R 2000A&AS..143....1G
%J-7
%A Genova F.
%A Egret D.
%A Bienayme O.
%A Bonnarel F.
%A Dubois P.
%A Fernique P.
%A Jasniewicz G.
%A Lesteven S.
%A Monier R.
%A Ochsenbein F.
%A Wenger M.
%T The CDS information hub. On-line services and links at the Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg.
%M ds1832
%F 2000.03.21
%B The Centre de donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) provides homogeneous access to heterogeneous information of various origins: information about astronomical objects in Simbad; catalogs and observation logs in VizieR and in the catalogue service; reference images and overlays in Aladin; nomenclature in the Dictionary of Nomenclature; Yellow Page services; the AstroGLU resource discovery tool; mirror copies of other reference services; and documentation. With the
implementation of links between the CDS services, and with other on-line reference information, CDS has become a major hub in the rapidly evolving world of information retrieval in astronomy, developing efficient tools to help astronomers to navigate in the world-wide ``Virtual Observatory'' under construction, from data in the observatory archives to results published in journals. The WWW interface to the CDS services is available at: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/ .
%K astronomical data bases: miscellaneous - catalogs - publications, bibliography - surveys - standards

%R 2000A&AS..143....9W
%J-22
%A Wenger M.
%A Ochsenbein F.
%A Egret D.
%A Dubois P.
%A Bonnarel F.
%A Borde S.
%A Genova F.
%A Jasniewicz G.
%A Laloee S.
%A Lesteven S.
%A Monier R.
%T The SIMBAD astronomical database. The CDS reference database for astronomical objects.
%M ds1821
%F 2000.03.21
%B Simbad is the reference database for identification and bibliography of astronomical objects. It contains identifications, ``basic data'', bibliography, and selected observational measurements for several million astronomical objects. Simbad is developed and maintained by CDS, Strasbourg. Building the database contents is achieved with the help of several contributing institutes. Scanning the bibliography is the result of the collaboration of CDS with bibliographers in
Observatoire de Paris (DASGAL), Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, and Observatoire de Bordeaux. When selecting catalogues and tables for inclusion, priority is given to optimal multi-wavelength coverage of the database, and to support of research developments linked to large projects. In parallel, the systematic scanning of the bibliography reflects the diversity and general trends of astronomical research. A WWW interface to Simbad is available at:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/Simbad .
%K astronomical data bases: miscellaneous - catalogs

%R 2000A&AS..143...23O
%J-32
%A Ochsenbein F.
%A Bauer P.
%A Marcout J.
%T The VizieR database of astronomical catalogues.
%M ds1826
%F 2000.03.21
%B VizieR is a database grouping in an homogeneous way thousands of astronomical catalogues gathered for decades by the Centre de Donnees de Strasbourg (CDS) and participating institutes. The history and current status of this large collection is briefly presented, and the way these catalogues are being standardized to fit in the VizieR system is described. The architecture of the database is then presented, with emphasis on the management of links and of accesses to very
large catalogues. Several query interfaces are currently available, making use of the ASU protocol, for browsing purposes or for use by other data processing systems such as visualisation tools.
%K astronomical data bases: miscellaneous - catalogs

%R 2000A&AS..143...33B
%J-40
%A Bonnarel F.
%A Fernique P.
%A Bienayme O.
%A Egret D.
%A Genova F.
%A Louys M.
%A Ochsenbein F.
%A Wenger M.
%A Bartlett J.G.
%T The ALADIN interactive sky atlas. A reference tool for identification of astronomical sources.
%M ds1785
%F 2000.03.21
%B The Aladin interactive sky atlas, developed at CDS, is a service providing simultaneous access to digitized images of the sky, astronomical catalogues, and databases. The driving motivation is to facilitate direct, visual comparison of observational data at any wavelength with images of the optical sky, and with reference catalogues. The set of available sky images consists of the STScI Digitized Sky Surveys, completed with high resolution images of crowded regions scanned
at the MAMA facility in Paris. A Java WWW interface to the system is available at: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/ .
%K astronomical data bases: miscellaneous - catalogs - atlases - surveys

%R 2000A&AS..143...41K
%J-59
%A Kurtz M.J.
%A Eichhorn G.
%A Accomazzi A.
%A Grant C.S.
%A Murray S.S.
%A Watson J.M.
%T The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview.
%M ds1780
%F 2000.03.21
%B The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service has become a key component of astronomical research. It provides bibliographic information daily, or near daily, to a majority of astronomical researchers worldwide. We describe the history of the development of the system and its current status. Urania (Boyce, 1996, Journals, Data and Abstracts Make an Integrated Electronic Resource, Am. Astron. Soc. Meet. 189, 0603), and the ADS role in the emerging electronic astronomical data environment are discussed. Astronomy is unique in that it already has a fully functional data
resource, where several of the most important data sources exist on-line and inter-operate nearly seamlessly. The ADS and the Strasbourg Data Center (CDS; Genova et al., 2000A&AS..143....1G) form the core of this resource. We show several examples of how to use the ADS, and we show how ADS use has increased as a function of time. Currently it is still increasing exponentially, with a doubling time for number of queries of 17 months. Using the ADS logs we make the first detailed model of how
scientific journals are read as a function of time since publication. We find four distinct components. We directly compare the readership rate with the citation rate for scientific articles as a function of age. Citations generally follow reads, but there are some differences. The main journals of astronomy have differences in the ways they are read and cited. We discuss these from a number of different aspects. The impact of the ADS on astronomy can be calculated after
making some simple assumptions. We find that the ADS increases the efficiency of astronomical research by 333 Full Time Equivalent (2000 hour) research years per year, and that the value of the early development of the ADS for astronomy, compared with waiting for mature technologies to be adopted, is 2332 FTE research years. A full technical description of the ADS is in three companion articles: Eichhorn et al., 2000A&AS..143...61E, Accomazzi et al., 2000A&AS..143...85A, and Grant et al., 2000A&AS..143..111G. The ADS is available at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/ .
%K methods: data analysis - astronomical databases: miscellaneous - publications: bibliography - sociology of astronomy

%R 2000A&AS..143...61E
%J-83
%A Eichhorn G.
%A Kurtz M.J.
%A Accomazzi A.
%A Grant C.S.
%A Murray S.S.
%T The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The search engine and its user interface.
%M ds1781
%F 2000.03.21
%B The ADS Abstract and Article Services provide access to the astronomical literature through the World Wide Web (WWW). The forms based user interface provides access to sophisticated searching capabilities that allow our users to find references in the fields of Astronomy, Physics/Geophysics, and astronomical Instrumentation and Engineering. The returned information includes links to other on-line information sources, creating an extensive astronomical digital library.
Other interfaces to the ADS databases provide direct access to the ADS data to allow developers of other data systems to integrate our data into their system. The search engine is a custom-built software system that is specifically tailored to search astronomical references. It includes an extensive synonym list that contains discipline specific knowledge about search term equivalences. Search request logs show the usage pattern of the various search system capabilities.
Access logs show the world-wide distribution of ADS users. The ADS can be accessed at: http://adswww.harvard.edu .
%K methods: data analysis - databases: misc - publications, bibliography

%R 2000A&AS..143...85A
%J-109
%A Accomazzi A.
%A Eichhorn G.
%A Kurtz M.J.
%A Grant C.S.
%A Murray S.S.
%T The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Architecture.
%M ds1784
%F 2000.03.21
%B The powerful discovery capabilities available in the ADS bibliographic services are possible thanks to the design of a flexible search and retrieval system based on a relational database model. Bibliographic records are stored as a corpus of structured documents containing fielded data and metadata, while discipline-specific knowledge is segregated in a set of files independent of the bibliographic data itself. This ancillary information is used by the database management
software to compile field-specific index files used by the ADS search engine to resolve user queries into lists of relevant documents. The creation and management of links to both internal and external resources associated with each bibliography in the database is made possible by representing them as a set of document properties and their attributes. The resolution of links available from different locations has been generalized to allow its control through a site- and
user-specific preference database. To improve global access to the ADS data holdings, a number of mirror sites have been created by cloning the database contents and software on a variety of hardware and software platforms. The procedures used to create and manage the database and its mirrors have been written as a set of scripts that can be run in either an interactive or unsupervised fashion. The modular approach we followed in software development has allowed a high degree
of freedom in prototyping and customization, making our system rich of features and yet simple enough to be easily modified on a day-to-day basis. We conclude discussing the impact that new datasets, technologies and collaborations is expected to have on the ADS and its possible role in an integrated environment of networked resources in astronomy. The ADS can be accessed at: http://adswww.harvard.edu .         
%K methods: data analysis - astronomical data bases: miscellaneous - publications: bibliography

%R 2000A&AS..143..111G
%J-135
%A Grant C.S.
%A Accomazzi A.
%A Eichhorn G.
%A Kurtz M.J.
%A Murray S.S.
%T The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Data holdings.
%M ds1779
%F 2000.03.21
%B Since its inception in 1993, the ADS Abstract Service has become an indispensable research tool for astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide. In those seven years, much effort has been directed toward improving both the quantity and the quality of references in the database. From the original database of approximately 160 000 astronomy abstracts, our dataset has grown almost tenfold to approximately 1.5 million references covering astronomy, astrophysics, planetary
sciences, physics, optics, and engineering. We collect and standardize data from approximately 200 journals and present the resulting information in a uniform, coherent manner. With the cooperation of journal publishers worldwide, we have been able to place scans of full journal articles on-line back to the first volumes of many astronomical journals, and we are able to link to current version of articles, abstracts, and datasets for essentially all of the current astronomy
literature. The trend toward electronic publishing in the field, the use of electronic submission of abstracts for journal articles and conference proceedings, and the increasingly prominent use of the World Wide Web to disseminate information have enabled the ADS to build a database unparalleled in other disciplines. The ADS can be accessed at: http://adswww.harvard.edu .
%K methods: data analysis - astronomical bibliography

%R 2000A&AS..143..137E
%J-143
%A Egret D.
%A Hanisch R.J.
%A Murtagh F.
%T Search and discovery tools for astronomical on-line resources and services.
%M ds1834
%F 2000.03.21
%B A growing number of astronomical resources and data or information services are made available through the Internet. However valuable information is frequently hidden in a deluge of non-pertinent or non up-to-date documents. At a first level, compilations of astronomical resources provide help for selecting relevant sites. Combining yellow-page services and meta-databases of active pointers may be an efficient solution to the data retrieval problem. Responses generated by
submission of queries to a set of heterogeneous resources are difficult to merge or cross-match, because different data providers generally use different data formats: new endeavors are under way to tackle this problem. We review the technical challenges involved in trying to provide general search and discovery tools, and to integrate them through upper level interfaces.
%K astronomical databases: miscellaneous