BACKGROUND

NRAOPapers is the NRAO publications bibliography initiated in July 1978 as RAPS. It consists of citations of published papers using NRAO telescope data or those written by an NRAO staff member. The most recent version of the database was developed in-house using MySQL, Solr, and Blacklight. There are over 18,000 enhanced citations in the database which include papers from 1957 to the present. An enhanced citation includes (in addition to title, authors, and source information), telescope, author affiliation, first author information, Proposal Code, and publication support information. NRAOPapers continues to increase in scope and number of papers.

The responsibility of the NRAO Library is to identify and add enhanced bibliographic information for papers that present analysis of NRAO telescope data or papers by NRAO staff members that do not use NRAO telescope data. Each bibliographic record must be coded properly for statistical and reference purposes.

IDENTIFICATION PROCESS FOR PAPERS

While the requirements for inclusion have remained consistent, the process to identify papers for inclusion in NRAOPapers has changed since 1978. Inclusion requirements are in compliance with other astronomy publications bibliographies such as Space Telescope and European Southern Observatory.

Initially an NRAO Library staff member searches ADS, IEEE, IEL, SpringerLink, Wiley Interscience, Elsevier SciVerse, AGU, AIP, Nature, Science, A&A, IOP, MNRAS, and other, smaller publications for the terms: “National Radio Astronomy Observatory”, NRAO, “Very Large Array”, VLA, “Very Long Baseline Array”, VLBA, “Green Bank Telescope”, GBT, Greenbank, “Atacama Large Millimeter Array”, “Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array”, ALMA, plus separate searches for various surveys that have used NRAO telescopes, such as NVSS, FIRST, etc. The resulting search set is then examined, paper-by-paper, to determine:

• if NRAO telescope data was used and, if it was,
• which telescope,
• whether it was archival or survey data,
• if no telescope information is found, the paper is checked for an NRAO staff author
• first author and succeeding authors’ affiliation status (such as Visitor, Staff, Jansky, Student, Summer Student, etc.).

INCLUSION PROCESS

Papers identified from above are searched for the NRAO acknowledgment (http://www.nrao.edu/library/pagecharges.shtml) as well as each mention of telescope data. A paper that states, under Observations (or perhaps Radio Observations or Observing Scheme): “Observations were carried out with the GBT, observing at a frequency of 2.0 GHz using 800 MHz of bandwidth” are obviously included, but the paper must be searched further for additional information such as Proposal Code(s) or other telescope observations (“We also used archival GBT data taken in 2004”).

However, many papers are more vague; noting under the Observations section, “Located in the Abell cluster A568, this source presents a rather complex structure at the VLA resolution.” If the paper contains additional references to VLA data, it would be included. This particular paper did not so was not included in NRAOPapers.

If a paper contains numerous references to a specific NRAO telescope data, but each reference is cited, the paper is not included in NRAOPapers. The citation information will be captured in citation statistics for the particular telescope and the cited paper.

Papers that name an NRAO telescope in the introduction or conclusion are almost never included as this is background information or a suggestion for future studies with a particular telescope. For example: “High-resolution VLBI and VLA imaging of the radio continuum reveals a central source < 1.5 pc in size, coincident with the infrared/optical core source, in addition to two opposing jets extending 7"-10" at a position angle of 42° (Wilson and Ulvestad 1983; Ulvestad, Neff, and Wilson 1986).” This is not only background, included under the ‘Introduction’ section, but clearly cites Wilson & Ulvestad 1983 and Ulvestad, Neff, and Wilson 1986 with no other mentions of VLA or VLBA.

Papers that include additional observations of an object or galaxy identified with an NRAO telescope will be included only if there is new analysis of original NRAO telescope data.

A paper covering the technical, instrumentation, or computing aspects of an NRAO telescope is coded to Instrumentation, Technical, or Computing (ITC). These papers are not coded to the telescope unless the paper analyzes new or reanalyzes old telescope data (even test data) as proof of change or improvement.

CODING OF PAPERS

When a paper is determined to meet the criteria above, the bibliographic record is imported into NRAOPapers and the record is enhanced by adding

• telescope coding (VLA, VLBA, GBT, ALMA plus historical or low-usage NRAO telescopes, and NRAO telescope surveys; at present a total of 56 different telescope or survey listings)
• proposal codes,
• first author affiliation, and author affiliation in general, and
• for those papers that do not have NRAO telescope data but are done by NRAO staff, the type of paper : Discussion/General /Theory (DGT) or Instrumentation/Technical/Computing (ITC) or Observational using a non-NRAO telescope (Observational)

• percent of total support provided,
• percent of NRAO authors on the paper,
• invoice amount,
• invoice date, and
• invoice number.

Proposal code identification is one of the most time-intensive aspects of coding, but is probably also the most useful for authors, researchers, and statistics. This information links proposals to observations to the finished product; the papers resulting from those observations.

With the database growing at a rate of approximately 350 enhanced bibliographic records a year, a reflection of the productivity of NRAO telescopes, it is necessary to remain consistent and ensure standardization over time. It is, however, also necessary to ensure necessary additional information is captured for statistics, especially when comparing statistics between observatories. The NRAO Library staff has done this since 1978 and will continue capturing and enhancing bibliographic records according to the established requirements while looking forward to different metrics requirements. Authors can assist in the endeavor by providing all required information when notifying the Library of new papers accepted for publication.

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