What is the ADS Abstract Service?

Database Coverage:

• How complete is the Abstract Service?
• How up-to-date is the Abstract Service?
• How far back do the abstracts go?
• How complete are the citations/references in the Abstract Service?
• How can I get a list of my citations?
• Why is a citation from an e-print missing?
• Can you add these citations to your database?
• What journals are abstracted?
• Why isn't this paper in there?
• How can I get the full text of the paper I've found?
• Why is this reference incomplete/wrong?
• How are reads for a paper calculated?
• Why are some abstracts in the ADS database different from the published ones?
• Why is my proposal indexed in the ADS?
• Why is there an "E" in the bibcode?
• Can I archive my proceedings abstracts through the ADS?
• Why are the BAAS entries in the system in two different formats?
• How do I link together articles such as an errata with their original article?
• How can I tell which journals are in which database?
• Who owns the copyright to these abstracts?

Searching the Databases:

• Why am I getting a page without results after a search?
• Why does my search generate so many results?
• How can I perform a boolean search?
• How can I search for a phrase like "Fe II"?
• How can I find papers in which XXX is first author?
• Why do my search parameters disappear from the query form?
• Why am I not able to store a default search form?
• Why can't I search on keywords?
• How can I link to my papers and articles?
• What are cookies and why do you use them?
• Can I search by affiliation?

Other Problems:

• Why won't the articles print for me?
• Why are the article files that I print so big?
• Why do I get prompted for username/password when following a link from the ADS?
• I notice that the record ADS displays for the paper I published contains my email address and I am concerned about its potential abuse
• How can I search for a particular journal by volume?
• Is it possible to retrieve the data in BibTex form?
• Why are there errors in the bibtex returned by the ADS?
• What other ways are available for accessing the ADS databases?
• Can ADS do everything Simbad does?
• Are there any mirror sites of the ADS?
• How should I acknowledge ADS?

Database Coverage:

How complete is the Abstract Service?

We encourage authors to submit missing abstracts, preferably through our Submit Abstract Form provided for that purpose.

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How up-to-date is the Abstract Service?

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How far back do the abstracts go?

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How complete are the citations/references in the Abstract Service?

In 1999 we started extracting reference lists from the full-text of papers available in the ADS article service or provided to us by the journal publishers. In October 2007 we gained access to CrossRef's metadata, which includes references from many articles in the physical sciences. As of June 2009 we have parsed and identified over 36 million references from all the sources of bibliographic metadata available to us. While the addition of these references has greatly improved our coverage, users should realize that we only have been able to generate these lists for a well-defined set of publications and in well-defined time spans. In addition, references may be incomplete due to our inability to match them with 100% accuracy (e.g. in press, private communications, author errors, some conference series, etc.). Anyone using the citations for analysis of publishing records should keep this in mind.

In our effort to expand the coverage of references in our databases, we strongly encourage the submission of lists of references appearing in a given publication from any of the following sources:

• the publisher of the journal or proceedings;
• the editor of the journal or proceedings;
• the author of the paper.

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How can I get a list of my citations?

You can also choose to view the list of papers citing just one or more papers by checking the buttons next to the bibcodes of each paper and then clicking on ``Get citation lists for selected articles." When the input query was an author-based one, you will also have the opportunity to remove self-citations by checking the corresponding checkbox at the bottom of the results list.

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Why is a citation from an e-print missing?

For more information, please see our help page on citations.

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Can you add these citations to your database?

Submitted papers

A submitted paper does not have a volume or page number and may not even be published; therefore we will not attempt to identify it with a record in our database. Even if the identification were possible, since the article had not been finalized at the time of publication of the citing paper, the final paper will almost certainly be different (and possibly significantly different) from the submitted paper.

Preprints

Preprints submitted to the arXiv and which are cited using the proper identifier (e.g. astro-ph/0012345) will be properly assigned to the e-print record in question. If the e-print has been matched to its corresponding published paper, the citation will be "transferred" to the published paper, which in ADS is considered the canonical record for the paper in question.

Papers ``in press''

Since papers in press have typically passed the refereeing and review stage, we can assume that the referenced paper is the same that was published. Therefore, when a referenced paper which is ``in press'' can be reliably identified, we will include a record for it in our databases. We encourage users to submit such references to us as specified above.

How can I get a count of all papers who have cited papers by me?

1. Selects the papers which are written by that author. This yields a list of N records.
2. Finds the papers that cite the N records found in step 1. This will yield M records.

Note that if a given reference was cited by more than one paper, it appears in the list only once, but the score reflects how many different papers cited that reference. Therefore, to get a count of all papers which have cited a given author's works, you need to add the scores of the results list. This is particularly important if you are dividing the query up by publication year. The simple result numbers will not appear to add up correctly since a given paper cited in different publication ranges will appear in the full list once with a higher score, but will appear multiple times in separate lists by publication date range.

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What journals are abstracted?

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Why isn't this paper in there?

We welcome the submission of missing papers, but request that they be submitted to us through the Abstract Submission Form. If you have many abstracts to submit, you may also email them to us, provided they are formatted in the required format.

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How can I get the full text of the paper I've found?

Why can't I find my old astro-ph papers?

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Why is this reference incomplete/wrong?

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How are reads for a paper calculated?

One useful ADS feature that readership data makes possible is the creation, for each article, of its list of "Also Read" papers. This is the list of papers that have been read, in the last 90 days, by those users who read that particular paper, ranked by reads. The list therefore offers an additional way for a user to find papers that are likely to be relevant to the original record, based on usage patterns.

Please note that the list of "Also Read" papers includes, for e-print records, readership statistics from both the ADS and the arXiv itself, which in some cases may increase the total number of reads by a factor of 10 or so. The reason we add records from arXiv's anonymized logs is because this gives much better results when computing article co-readership lists. arXiv usage is not otherwise included in the article readership data displayed by ADS.

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Why are some abstracts in the ADS database different from the published ones?

Abstracts that we receive directly from the publishers and the original authors (called "author" abstracts) are instead a faithful and accurate reproduction of text that was published in the paper's abstract (except for math and non-ASCII symbols, of course). Individuals who wish to submit original abstracts to be included into our system can do so through the Abstract Submission Form (see also previous question).

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Why are proposals indexed in the ADS?

Anyone wishing to exclude these from their searches can enter the string "-?????prop" in the box next to "Select/deselect publications" in the filter section of the main query form.

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Why is there an "E" in the bibcode?

When these are later published in proceedings with page numbers, the E abstracts are replaced with real printed proceedings abstracts containing page numbers. Any E abstracts which are not matched with the printed versions are deleted at this point (presumably because the author did not attend the conference or withdrew the paper). It is therefore not adviseable to create hyperlinks to one of such entries, since they are to be considered "temporary" bibliographic references.

We invite all conference proceeding editors to submit their abstracts to ADS by sending email to ads@cfa.harvard.edu either before the conference, after they are published, or (preferably) both.

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Can I archive my proceedings articles through the ADS?

1) The conference is originally published elswhere (e.g. through a university or observatory publication, or through another publisher).

2) We receive the pdf or postscript files as from the conference proceedings editors as described in our conference help pages.

3) The data have been published at least three years ago.

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Why are the BAAS entries in the system in two different formats?

We decided to use a different journal abbreviation (AAS), together with the information contained in these versions -- the meeting number and the session number to create the bibliographic code. Therefore, most recent BAAS abstracts are in the following format:

1995AAS...187.9004J

where 187 is the meeting number and 9004 is session #90.04.

However, we also receive these abstracts from Simbad, who enter them into the system from the printed BAAS booklet, so those references include the volume and page number (1995BAAS...27.1417J). We make every effort to match these two references so that each abstract is only in the system once. Note that a "bibcode query" for either of these formats will find the appropriate paper.

This is also true for the DPS and SPD meeting abstracts, though their meeting number is the same as the volume number. Therefore, recent DPS and SPD meeting abstracts (i.e. the 28th meeting, session #12.16), have bibliographic codes such as:

1996DPS....28.1216M

We apologize for the confusion caused by these two different naming systems, but we must work with the data we have, which is sometimes incomplete.

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How do I link together articles such as an errata with their original article?

How can I tell which journals are in which database?

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Who owns the copyright to these abstracts??

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Searching the Databases:

Why am I getting a page without results after a search?

The solution to the problem depends on the product that you are using, but typically involves configuring it so that it "trusts" content coming from our site. Sometimes clicking on options such as "enable pop-ups from this site" (when available) is enough, other times the solution is more involved. We recommend you consult your product's documentation.

Additional help in the form of step-by step instructions contributed by our users is available

Why does my search generate so many results?

• Use ``AND'' as the default boolean operator between words in a search field by checking the ``AND'' box on top of the search box.
• Use full boolean logic within a search field by checking the ``boolean logic'' box and combine your search words with boolean operators.
• Use simple logic syntax by checking the ``simple logic'' box and use the word selection operators described below.
• Require that words specified in a particular search box be present in the resulting list of references by checking the Require Field for Selection in the ``Settings'' section at the bottom of the abstract service query form.
• Disable synonym replacement by either unchecking the Synonym Replacement box in the ``Settings'' section or on a word-by-word basis.
• Restrict the dataset to be searched by changing the publication date range and/or by selecting one or more items in the ``Filters'' section of the abstract service query form.

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How can I perform a boolean search?

If you would like to see only papers written by both authors (or which contain all words which you have entered in any other field), you need to change the combination method to "AND" above the text entry field.

In addition, there are now two additional options for search logic:

SIMPLE LOGIC QUERIES -- The simple logic recognizes '+' and '-' before the words. To require a word to be found in a search, it needs a '+' in front of it. A '-' before a word indicates that only references that do NOT contain that word should be returned. AND , OR, NOT are stopwords and will be ignored in the simple logic.

Note that if you want to exclude a word, it is best if it is not the first or only word listed in the search. This requires every abstract in the system to be returned, before the excluded word can be found and omitted from the returned abstracts. These searches can therefore take a long time.

FULL BOOLEAN QUERIES -- This allows more complex queries than just combining all words with "OR" or "AND". The allowed boolean operators are: "and", "or", "not", "(", and ")". They can be used in any combination (as long as "(" and ")" match). For example the query "(redshift or survey) and not galaxy" finds all references that contain either "redshift" or "survey", but not "galaxy". The order of precedence of the operators is "(...)", "not", "and", "or". For larger numbers of search terms, this type of search will be slower than regular searches, especially if the "not" operator is used. Regular scoring is done on any terms that are combined with "or". "and" and "not" combinations are scored as 1.

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How can I search for a phrase like "Fe II"?

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How can I find papers in which XXX is first author?

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Why do my search parameters disappear from the query form?

1. Netscape 3.x: from the top menu bar of Netscape Navigator, select ``Options'' -> ``Network Preferences...'' -> ``Cache.''
   Netscape 4.x: from the top menu bar, select ``Edit'' -> ``Preferences,'' select ``Advanced'' -> ``Cache.''
2. Make sure that the directory specified in ``Cache Directory'' exists and is writeable.
3. Make sure that values specified for ``Disk Cache'' and ``Memory Cache'' are greater than 0 and reasonable.
4. Click on ``Clear Memory Cache Now''
5. Click on ``Clear Disk Cache Now''
6. Click on ``OK'' (twice).

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Why am I not able to store a default search form?

• If you use Netscape, make sure you press your shift key while you click on the ``Reload'' button (``hard'' reload). This forces the browser to disregard the timestamp of the original document and makes it fetch a new copy. Note: this option is not available to Internet Explorer users.
• Try exiting your browser and restarting it again. This usually forces the browser to re-check the timestamp on the target URL and will download a new copy.
• Finally, if all else fails, try clearing the browser cache as described above.

Why can't I search on keywords?

We have now indexed keywords from all sources into the abstract text words. For best results on searching, enter words ("keywords" and others) in the abstract text field.

If for some reason, you want to do a NASA/STI keyword search, we still provide that capability through our Abstract Legacy Form, but understand that results will be outdated (since we no longer receive abstracts from NASA/STI) and incomplete (since keywords from other sources are not included).

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How can I link to my papers and articles?

   esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/abs_connect?
      author=last,+f.&aut_syn=YES&return_req=no_params

If you want to specify the author middle initial in addition to the first initial, use exact author matching (&aut_xct=YES):

   esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/abs_connect?
      author=last,+f.m.&aut_xct=YES&return_req=no_params

   esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/abs_connect?
      author=last,+f.m.;last,+first+m.&aut_xct=YES&return_req=no_params

   esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/abs_connect?
      author=last,+f.m.;last,+first+m.&aut_xct=YES&exclude=YES&
         bibcode=bibcode1,bibcode2&return_req=no_params

If you know the bibliographic code of the paper you want to link to:

   esoads.eso.org/abs/bibcode

   esoads.eso.org/full/bibcode

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What are cookies and why do you use them?

If you choose not to let our server set a cookie with you, you will not be able to take advantage of all of the features on our system. You will still be able to use the server for basic searching, provided you select the search page which disables cookies:

esoads.eso.org/abstract_service.html?nosetcookie=1

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Can I search by affiliation?

However, given the amount of requests we have had on this subject, in 2005 we introduced a separate query form allowing a user to search for different affiliation spellings in the database and subsequently retrieve any records containing them. The search form is available at:

esoads.eso.org/list_aff.html

For researchers wishing to analyze affiliations on a large-scale basis, we can provide this information on a collaborative basis. Note however that because of the limitations of this type of search we recommend that people use author searches instead when compiling bibliometric studies for particular institutions.

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Other Problems:

Why won't the articles print for me?

Additional issues related to printing the fulltext documents served by ADS are described in our article retrieval help page. Back to top

Why are the article files that I print so big?

If you use Adobe Acrobat Reader on a UNIX machine to view your PDF files and your printer supports PostScript level 2 (most modern printers do), then you should make sure that you select the following settings in acrobat's printing menu (which pops up when you click on the "Print" button):