Content Warning
The Threat to the Astrophysics Data System
Many times on this blog (e.g. here) I have mentioned many times is the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System which (for the uninitiated) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in astronomy and physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 14.0 million records covering publications in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and (of course) the arXiv e-prints. In addition to maintaining its bibliographic corpus, the ADS tracks citations and other information, which means, that among many other things, it is an important tool for evaluating publication impact. I use it very frequently.
I’m not the only person to be worried about this, see e.g. here.
After the Trump administration’s sudden and devasting cuts to Federal science agencies such as the National Science Foundation, it seems very likely that NASA programmes will also be severely cut which calls the future of the ADS system into doubt. This facility is used by astronomers around the world and its loss would have serious consequences for the global research community. I sincerely hope that astronomical organizations around the world will get together and ensure that data is not lost and a replacement website is set up. If your’e an astronomer please put pressure on your national funders to look at this as a matter of agency. We NASA/ADS is a wonderful resource, and is not by any standards expensive to run. We will all regret it if it is lost.
P.S. I have been asked if arXiv is under a similar threat. I don’t believe it is – yet – as it is not run by a Federal organization. We do have secure backups of all OJAp published articles, though, in case you were wondering.