The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The Search Engine and its User Interface

Abstract

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

23 pages, 18 figures, 11 tables

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library
• Usage Bibliometrics
• The Bibliometric Properties of Article Readership Information
• Multicomponent radiatively driven stellar winds II. Gayley-Owocki heating in multitemperature winds of OB stars
• The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Architecture
• Properties and nature of Be stars XXIII. Long-term variations and physical properties of kappa Dra
• Multicomponent radiatively driven stellar winds III. Radiative-acoustic waves in a two-component wind
• Quasi-Simultaneous Radio/X-ray Observations of the Candidate Transitional Millisecond Pulsar 3FGL J1544.6-1125 During its Low-Luminosity Accretion-Disc State
• Observations of H-alpha, iron, and oxygen lines in B, Be, and shell stars
• Usage Bibliometrics as a Tool to Measure Research Activity