Skip to content

Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library

Kurtz, Michael J.Eichhorn, GuentherAccomazzi, AlbertoGrant, Carolyn S.Demleitner, MarkusMurray, Stephen S.

Abstract

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), along with astronomy's journals and data centers (a collaboration dubbed URANIA), has developed a distributed on-line digital library which has become the dominant means by which astronomers search, access and read their technical literature.

Digital libraries permit the easy accumulation of a new type of bibliometric measure, the number of electronic accesses (``reads'') of individual articles.

By combining data from the text, citation, and reference databases with data from the ADS readership logs we have been able to create Second Order Bibliometric Operators, a customizable class of collaborative filters which permits substantially improved accuracy in literature queries.

Using the ADS usage logs along with membership statistics from the International Astronomical Union and data on the population and gross domestic product (GDP) we develop an accurate model for world-wide basic research where the number of scientists in a country is proportional to the GDP of that country, and the amount of basic research done by a country is proportional to the number of scientists in that country times that country's per capita GDP.

We introduce the concept of utility time to measure the impact of the ADS/URANIA and the electronic astronomical library on astronomical research. We find that in 2002 it amounted to the equivalent of 736 FTE researchers, or 250 Million, or the astronomical research done in France.

Details

© The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System

help[at]scixplorer.org

SciX is a project created by the Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under NASA Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC21M0056.

RESOURCES

About SciXGive FeedbackSciX HelpCareers@SciXAccessibilityNASA Science Discovery Engine