News
Astronomy News
Pamela Yorks
The complete online version of the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), starting with the January 1 issue, is now available .
The Letters section of the ApJ has been available electronically since September 1995. The ApJ has the same format, including links to the abstracts and full texts of references at the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and other features designed for the users, and for ensuring the ability to archive the electronic version for decades.
Other major astronomical journals will join the ApJ on line in 1997 and have agreed to follow the ApJ standard in providing links to references through the ADS.
The electronic version of ApJ will be bundled with the print subscription. One can buy extra print subscriptions at a reduced rate, or an electronic only subscription, also at a reduced rate. Also, if you currently subscribe to the ApJ but not the Supplement, you will be given electronic access to both. Information on the electronic edition, registration forms and institutional site licensing is also available on the web.
If you have further questions or wish to get mail directly from AAS rather than through your serials department, contact Sandra Willis, Customer Service Manager at University of Chicago Press.
A New Old Journal
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, which has been published since 1960, is to end with the December 1996 issue (volume 37, No 4) and be replaced by a new Journal, Astronomy and Geophysics. The new journal will also subsume the Newsletter of the RAS. The journal is to be published by Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol; requests for information may be sent to Andrea Pomroy.
IAU Publisher Switch
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decided to switch from Kluwer to Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) for its official publications. ASP will take over after the Kluwer contract runs out, sometime after the IAU meetings in Kyoto.
Help Build a Library
If anyone is sending out a duplicate list [of astronomy books or journals], please send an electronic copy to Heinz Andernach. The astronomy deparment at Guanajuato is new, and they are working to build a library collection. Heinz Andernach, Depto. de Astronomia, Univ. Guanajuato, Mexico.
1997 Astronomical Almanac Errors
Several astronomers have reported to U.S.N.O. that there are some errors in Section H. of the 1997 Astronomical Almanac. Coordinates tabulated in the Bright Stars list and the Globular Clusters list, in Section H of the Almanac, were accidentally calculated and printed for Julian Date 2440000.0. Correct (1997.5) coordinates have been posted on the Web.
Printed copies may be obtained by writing to:
Chief, Nautical Almanac Office
U.S. Naval Observatory
3450 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20392-5420.
LISA III
Monique Gomez and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias will host the third gathering devoted to Library and Information Services in Astronomy (LISA) in Puerto de la Cruz, the Canary Islands, in the spring of 1998.
ASP Conference Series
Uta Grothkopf, European Southern Observatory, forwards the following information: Vol. 106 of the ASP Conference Series are the proceedings of the "Minnesota Lectures on Extragalactic Neutral Hydrogen". On the title page, it says that the lectures were presented between March and June 1994, whereas the editor states in the foreword that they were held during spring 1995. The ASP was contacted and Liz Holloman says that the year on the title page of Volume 106 of the Conference Series is incorrect. So the date in the foreword is correct.
Astrophysics Data System
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS), a NASA-funded project underway at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), is expanding its online article service to include early issues of the major astronomical journals. This service provides free and unlimited WWW access to the full text of journal articles. In order to provide complete coverage of the journals, Alberto Accomazzi was [in December] looking for donations of the following issues:
ApJ: vv 1-116 (1895-1952),v 121 (1955),v 140 (1964)
ApJS: vv 1-72 (1954-1990); various issues 1991-current
AJ: vv 1-31 (1849-1918)
PASP: vv 1-31 (1889-1919), vv 63-70 (1951-1958), v 80 (1968), v 83 (1971), vv 85,86 (1973,1974)
MNRAS: vv 1-50 (1827-1890)
They will accept both bound and unbound good-quality copies of any of the above volumes, giving preference to unbound ones when available. In order to create electronic versions of these journals, they send the volumes to a scanning company that cuts their back during the digitization process. Even though rebinding of the material may be possible, they usually dispose of the journals after scanning, but can ask for them to be returned to the donor if necessary.
Once digitized and processed, these journals become available to anybody in the world for browsing and printing from their Web site.
Please contact Alberto directly if you have anything to offer.
New Web site
The Observatorium is a cooperative project among NASA's Information Infrastructure Technology & Applications Program, BDM International, and West Virginia University. This site currently offers four new features: Applications of Satellite Data, Fun and Games, Tools & Data, and the Birth of Stars; it also features a new observation each week, as well as providing current headlines in space exploration; and access to discussions of NASA's educational projects (categorized by grade level and topic). The Image Gallery contains many stunning pictures of the universe, solar system, moon, spacecraft, and more.
NED on the Web
The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) now has a WWW-based version of the interface available for use. To access NED on the Web, point to http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu. Contact Marion Schmitz for more information.
New Astronomy
The electronic version of Elsevier's New Astronomy is still free for the time being, although the print edition carries a subscription fee. The rejection rate is 40-50% and the time from submission to publication has been as short as 4 months.
New Homepage
The Astronomy Branch Library, Mt Stromlo & Siding Spring Observatories (ANU), now has a homepage. Their preprints can be found at http://msowww.anu.edu.au/preprints.
Pagination Problem
James Lequeux warns about "an unfortunate error concerning Vol 120, No 4 of Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplements (A&AS), a special issue containing the papers of the Third Compton Symposium." The page number starts with page 1, so that there is a risk of confusion with pages in the previous issues of the volume. The pages of this special issue should be indexed with a capital C before the page number. This will be done in the annual index and in the ADS, and a sticker will be sent by the publisher with one of the next issues of A&AS, to be pasted on the volume which should be bound separately due to its size.
Urania - Universal Research Archive of Networked
Information in Astronomy
Urania is an electronic resource that is composed of astronomical scholarly journals, bibliographic information, archives of original data, astronomical catalogs, copies of the historical scholarly literature for the last twenty years and a special reference system archive organized by object in the sky.
Contact http://www.aas.org/Urania for more information.