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The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a digital library portal for researchers on astronomy and physics, operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. ADS maintains three bibliographic collections containing over 15 million records, including all arXiv e-prints.[1] Abstracts and full-text of major astronomy and physics publications are indexed and searchable through the portal.
 | |
| Producer | Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States) |
|---|---|
| History | 1992 to present |
| Access | |
| Cost | Free |
| Coverage | |
| Disciplines | Astronomy and physics |
| Record depth | Index & abstract & full-text |
| Geospatial coverage | Worldwide |
| Links | |
| Website | ui |
History
editThe first comprehensive history of astronomy was published in 1741 by Johann Friedrich Weidler. This would become the first in a series of efforts over the following centuries to create an archive of astronomical research, carried on by individuals such as Jérôme de La Lande, and later by institutions, such as the Observatoire Royal de Belgique, where the Bibliography of Astronomy was published from 1881 to 1898, and then at the Astronomischer Rechen-Institut in Heidelberg, where the yearly Astronomischer Jahresbericht was published from 1899 to 1968. After 1968, this was replaced by the yearly Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts book series, which continued until the end of the 20th century.
At the end of the 20th century, digital media was becoming more widespread, and as such, the first suggestion of a digital database of journal paper abstracts was made at a conference on Astronomy from Large Data-Bases held in Garching bei München in 1987.[2][3][4][5]
An initial version of ADS, with a database consisting of 40 papers, was created as a proof of concept in 1988. The ADS Abstract Service became available for general use via proprietary network software in April 1993. In early 1994 the ADS web-based service was launched, which effectively quadrupled the number of active users (from 400 to 1,600) in the five weeks following its introduction.[6] This number would grow to 30,000 "heavy users" by 2007, before the system was forced to pivot its mechanisms starting in 2008.[7]
In 2011 the ADS launched ADS Labs Streamlined Search which introduced facets for query refinement and selection. In 2013 ADS Labs 2.0 featuring a new search engine, full-text search functionality, scalable facets and an API was introduced. In 2015 the new ADS, code-named Bumblebee, was released as ADS-beta. The ADS-beta system features a micro-services API and client-side dynamic page loading served on a cloud platform. In May 2018 the beta label was dropped and Bumblebee became the default ADS interface—with some legacy features (ADS Classic) remaining available.[8] Development continues to the present day, with an extensible API available, enabling users to build their own utilities on top of the ADS bibliographic record.
Data in the system
editAt first, the journal articles available via ADS were exclusively scanned bitmaps created from the paper journals and the abstracts created using optical character recognition software. Some of these scanned articles up to around 1995 are available for free by agreement with the journal publishers,[9] with some dating from as far back as the early 19th century. Eventually, because of a wider spread of online editions of journal publications, abstracts would start to instead be loaded into ADS directly.
Papers are indexed within the database by their bibliographic record which contains the details of the journal they were published in, and various associated metadata, such as author lists, references and citations. Originally this data was stored in ASCII format but eventually the limitations of this encouraged the database maintainers to migrate all records to an XML (Extensible Markup Language) format in 2000. Bibliographic records are now stored as an XML element with sub-elements for the various metadata.[10] As of 2000, ADS contained 250 GB of scans, which consisted of 1,128,955 article pages comprising 138,789 articles. By 2014, this number had grown to 2TB, expected to rise to 3TB by 2016.[9]
The database initially contained only astronomical references, but has now grown to incorporate three databases, covering astronomy references (including planetary sciences and solar physics), physics references (including instrumentation and geosciences), as well as preprints of scientific papers from arXiv.[11]
Data in the preprint archive is updated daily from arXiv which is the dominant repository of physics and astronomy preprints. The advent of preprint servers has, like ADS, had a significant impact on the rate of astronomical research, as papers are often made available from preprint servers weeks or months before they are published in the journals. The incorporation of preprints from arXiv into ADS means that the search engine can return the most current research available, with the caveat that preprints may not have been peer-reviewed or proofread to the required standard for publication in the main journals.[12] The database of ADS links preprints with subsequently published articles wherever possible, so that citation and reference searches will return links to the journal article where the preprint was cited.[13]
Software and hardware
editThe software initially ran on a system that was written specifically for the ADS, but in later years, the extent of data meant that converting it all to this custom system would be far too resource- and labor-intensive, and so it was compiled to run on JavaScript.[7]
The main ADS server is located at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As of 2014, it was a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server with two quad-core 3.0 GHz CPUs and 64 GB of RAM, running the CentOS 6.4 Linux distribution.[9] As of 2022, there are mirrors located in China, Chile, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.[14]
Coverage
editThe database now contains over fifteen million articles. In the cases of the major journals of astronomy (Astrophysical Journal, Astronomical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), coverage is complete, with all issues indexed from number 1 to the present. These journals account for about two-thirds of the papers in the database, with the rest consisting of papers published in over 100 other journals from around the world, as well as in conference proceedings.
References in and citations of articles in the major journals are fairly complete, but references such as "private communication", "in press" or "in preparation" cannot be matched, and author errors in reference listings also introduce potential errors. Astronomical papers may cite and be cited by articles in journals which fall outside the scope of ADS, such as chemistry, mathematics or biology journals.[15]
Search
editInitially, the ADS used a bespoke search engine.[16] However, due to technical limitations and the convenience of developing technology, it was converted to use Apache Solr in 2013.[7]
Although it was conceived as a means of accessing abstracts and papers, ADS provides a substantial amount of ancillary information along with search results. For each abstract returned, links are provided to other papers in the database which are referenced, and which cite the paper, and a link is provided to a preprint, where one exists. The system also generates a link to "also-read" articles – that is, those which have been most commonly accessed by those reading the article. In this way, an ADS user can determine which papers are of most interest to astronomers who are interested in the subject of a given paper.[16]
Also returned are links to the SIMBAD and/or NASA Extragalactic Database object name databases, via which a user can quickly find out basic observational data about the objects analyzed in a paper, and find further papers on those objects.
Impact on astronomy
editIn the 2000s, ADS was almost universally used as a research tool among astronomers, and there are several studies that have estimated quantitatively how much more efficient ADS has made astronomy; one estimated that ADS increased the efficiency of astronomical research by 333 full-time equivalent research years per year,[6] and another found that in 2002 its effect was equivalent to 736 full-time researchers, or all the astronomical research done in France.[17] Although more recent data is limited, the ADS continues to be awarded both domestic and international recognition for its transformative contributions to astronomy.[18] The great importance of ADS to astronomers has been recognized by the United Nations, the General Assembly of which has commended ADS on its work and success, particularly noting its importance to astronomers in the developing world, in reports of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. A 2002 report by a visiting committee to the Center for Astrophysics, meanwhile, said that the service had "revolutionized the use of the astronomical literature", and was "probably the most valuable single contribution to astronomy research that the CfA has made in its lifetime".[18]
Sociological studies using ADS
editBecause it is used almost universally by astronomers, ADS can reveal much about how astronomical research is distributed around the world. Most users access the system from institutes of higher education, whose IP address can easily be used to determine the user's geographical location. Studies reveal that the highest per-capita users of ADS are France and Netherlands-based astronomers, and while more developed countries (measured by GDP per capita) use the system more than less developed countries; the relationship between GDP per capita and ADS use is not linear. The range of ADS usage per capita far exceeds the range of GDP per capita, and basic research carried out in a country, as measured by ADS usage, has been found to be proportional to the square of the country's GDP divided by its population.[17] Statistics also imply that there are about three times as many astronomers in countries of European culture as in countries of Asian cultures, perhaps suggesting cultural differences in the importance attached to astronomical research.[17] The amount of basic research carried out in a country is found to be proportional to the number of astronomers in that country multiplied by its GDP per capita, with considerable scatter.
ADS has also been used to show that the fraction of single-author astronomy papers has decreased substantially since 1975 and that astronomical papers with more than 50 authors have become more common since 1990.[19]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "About ADS". ui.adsabs.harvard.edu. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
- ^ Squibb, G.F.; Cheung, C.Y. (1988). "NASA astrophysics data system (ADS) study". European Southern Observatory Conference and Workshop Proceedings. 28: 489. Bibcode:1988ESOC...28..489S.
- ^ Adorf, H.-M.; Busch, E.K. (1988). Intelligent access to a bibliographical full text data base. European Southern Observatory Conference and Workshop Proceedings. Vol. 28. p. 143. Bibcode:1988ESOC...28..143A.
- ^ Rey-Watson, J.M. (1988). Access to astronomical literature through commercial databases. European Southern Observatory Conference and Workshop Proceedings. Vol. 28. p. 453. Bibcode:1988ESOC...28..453R.
- ^ Rhodes, C.; Kurtz, M.J.; Rey-Watson, J.M. (1988). A library collection of software documentation specific to astronomical data reduction. European Southern Observatory Conference and Workshop Proceedings. Vol. 28. p. 459. Bibcode:1988ESOC...28..459R.
- ^ a b Kurtz, M.J.; Eichhorn G.; Accomazzi A.; Grant C.S.; Murray S.S.; Watson J.M. (2000). "The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview". Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series. 143 (1): 41–59. arXiv:astro-ph/0002104. Bibcode:2000A&AS..143...41K. doi:10.1051/aas:2000170. S2CID 17583122.
- ^ a b c Accomazzi, Alberto (18 January 2024). "Decades of Transformation: Evolution of the NASA Astrophysics Data System's Infrastructure". ArXiv. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
- ^ Accomazzi, Alberto; Kurtz, Michael J.; Henneken, Edwin; Grant, Carolyn S.; Thompson, Donna M.; Chyla, Roman; McDonald, Steven; Shaulis, Taylor J.; Blanco-Cuaresma, Sergi; Shapurian, Golnaz; Hostetler, Timothy W.; Templeton, Matthew R.; Lockhart, Kelly E. (January 2018). ADS Bumblebee comes of age. 231st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society. 362.17. Bibcode:2018AAS...23136217A.
- ^ a b c "NASA ADS Abstract Service Mirroring Information". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 23 June 2005. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
- ^ Accomazzi, A.; Eichhorn, G.; Kurtz, M.J.; Grant, C.S.; Murray, S.S. (2000). "The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Architecture". Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series. 143 (1): 85–109. arXiv:astro-ph/0002105. Bibcode:2000A&AS..143...85A. doi:10.1051/aas:2000172. S2CID 7182316.
- ^ "About ADS". ui.adsabs.harvard.edu. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
- ^ "Astrophysics Data System (ADS) | Rutgers University Libraries". www.libraries.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
- ^ myADS-arXiv: A fully customized, open access virtual journal. March Meeting 2007, American Physical Society. Vol. 52. U20.9. Retrieved 30 October 2008.
- ^ "SAO/NASA ADS at SAO: Mirror Sites". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2024.
- ^ "ADS Bibliographic Codes: Journal Abbreviations". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Archived from the original on 30 April 2008. Retrieved 30 October 2008.
- ^ a b Eichhorn, G.; Kurtz, M.J.; Accomazzi, A.; Grant, C.S.; Murray, S.S. (2000). "The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The search engine and its user interface". Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series. 143 (1): 61–83. arXiv:astro-ph/0002102. Bibcode:2000A&AS..143...61E. doi:10.1051/aas:2000171. S2CID 2787647.
- ^ a b c Kurtz, M.J.; Eichhorn G.; Accomazzi A.; Grant C.S.; Demleitner M.; Murray S.S. (2005). "Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 56 (1): 36–45. arXiv:0909.4786. Bibcode:2005JASIS..56...36K. doi:10.1002/asi.20095. S2CID 15181632. (Preprint)
- ^ a b "ADS Awards and Recognition". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
- ^ Schulman, E.; French, J.C.; Powell, A.L.; Eichhorn, G.; Kurtz, M.J.; Murray, S.S. (1997). "Trends in Astronomical Publication Between 1975 and 1996". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 109: 1278–1284. Bibcode:1997PASP..109.1278S. doi:10.1086/134008. S2CID 122859920.
