The ADS and Open Access

Michael J. Kurtz

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

What’s Most Important?

• The most valuable commodity in any research endeavor is the time of the best researchers

• 15% of active researchers produce ~50% of the research output; 50% of active researchers produce ~15% of the research output.

• In astronomy 1/3 of PhDs stay active in research

Historical ADS Goals

• The original goal (1990) of the ADS Abstract Service was to provide intelligent access to the astronomical literature and data (via hyperlinks) by using the metadata (abstracts, references) to journal articles as an index.

• This implies Open Access to the metadata, this was not common then.

Access to Archival Whole Text

• 1994 ApJL scanning begun• Summer 1995 ApJL on-line in html via

UCP, 20 years of archives on-line via ADS• 1999 all major astronomy journals on-line

via ADS to issue 1, volume 1. All archival scans Open Access, current html and pdf closed access via publishers (moving window)

• 2007 Green links

References

• 1996 AAS purchases reference lists from ISI for ADS

• Since then ADS parses the lists from XML, SGML, … articles provided by the publishers, almost all (but not all) participate.

• Some lists are OA (A&A, JHEP)

• Some are not (ApJ, PhRv)

• ADS created citation lists are all OA

arXiv

• 1996 ADS collaboration with arXiv (then xxx@lanl) begins

• 2005 collaboration broadens with the start of myADS-arXiv

• myADS-arXiv is an open access, individually customized virtual journal which each week provides the most important new papers in physics and astronomy

Data

• 1988 Astrophysics DATA System

• 1993 SIMBAD-ADS joint queries

• 1993 Links to A&A tables (now VIZIER)

• 1997 Links to ADIL

• 2000 Links to HST archive

• 2004 Archive links in Journals

• 2006 Observing proposals indexed

Today

• OA Metadata (5.3M)

• OA Citation lists (1.9M)

• OA Data links (50,000)

• Most astronomy journal articles are OA via ADS scans, journal moving windows, or arXiv– E.g. 99 of 100 top cited “redshift survey”

papers has a green link

ADS Policy Statement

The ADS supports the goal of Open Access, and encourages publishers, journals, scientific societies, and government agencies to develop methods to achieve this goal without degrading the existing system for scientific communication

The ADS pledges to support these efforts

The work and services provided by the ADS will always be Open Access

A Bibliometric Interlude

• Astronomy has had a voluntary OA system for many years in the arXiv

• How do astronomers use arXiv, and how do they use the journals?

But: HEP: Erick WeisbergScreen:arXiv; print:PRD

The Real Cost of Doing Nothing

• The most important intellectual work of the 20th century was done by a junior clerk in the Swiss patent office

• Today he would not be able to access the on-line journals

• What work is not being done now because a junior engineer in an Indonesian shoe factory cannot read The Physical Review (or Cell or …) on her lunch break?