Resources

ADS Abstract Service

The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Abstract Service is a bibliographical resource funded by NASA and maintained by personnel at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Complete bibliographical information–and in a number of cases, abstracts as well–for papers on topics in space physics and aeronomy can be obtained by querying either the Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstract Service or the Physics and Geophysics Abstract Service. Titles and abstracts for space instrumentation and engineering papers are available from a third data base, the Instrumentation Abstract Service. In addition to papers appearing in refereed journals, the ADS data bases also contain entries for DPS and LPSC presentations, NASA reports, conference proceedings, geophysical monographs, etc.

Unfortunately, neither the Astronomy and Astrophysics nor the Physics and Geophysics data base is complete. For example, no JGR-Space Physics* papers from 1996 and the first six months of 1997 appear to be contained in either data base. No abstracts are available for JGR papers published in 1997 and 1998 or for GRL papers published since the middle of 1995. The ADS has been advised of these omissions, and it is hoped that the situation will be corrected. These difficulties notwithstanding, however, the ADS Abstract Service offers the SPA community a convenient and powerful tool for conducting bibliographical searches.

To access the ADS Abstract Service data bases, link to http://adswww.harvard.edu/ads_abstracts.html

*Papers published in JGR-Planets during 1996 are included in the data bases, however.