Related papers: Astronomy Librarians - Quo Vadis?

I review some of the past and current methods for retrieval of literature and other published information, excluding commercial services. Much of this is a personal view and based on experience made at various institutions, some of them…

During recent years, bibliometric studies have become increasingly important in evaluating individual scientists, institutes, and entire observatories. In astronomy, often librarians are involved in maintaining publication databases and…

The outreach activities can be considered a new frontier of all the main astronomical research institutions worldwide and are a part of their mission that earns great appreciation from the general public. Here the situation at INAF, the…

Technical libraries are currently experiencing very rapid change. In the near future their mission will change, their physical nature will change, and the skills of their employees will change. While some will not be able to make these…

All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…

As a scientific discipline, Astronomy is rather unique. We only have one laboratory, the Universe, and we cannot, of course, change the initial conditions and study the resulting effects. On top of this, acquiring Astronomical data has…

Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…

Fundamental changes are taking place in the way we do astronomy. In twenty years time, it is likely that most astronomers will never go near a cutting-edge telescope, which will be much more efficiently operated in service mode. They will…

Virtually every ``serious'' place where professional astronomy is done has a librarian, even if shared with the physics or math department. Since its creation in 1994 of {\it Departamento de Astronom\'{\i}a} (DA) of Universidad de…

Policy Brief on "Global Data in Astronomy: Challenges and Opportunities", distilled from the corresponding panel that was part of the discussions during S20 Policy Webinar on Astroinformatics for Sustainable Development held on 6-7 July…

After several years of intensive technological development Virtual Observatory resources have reached a level of maturity sufficient for their routine scientific exploitation. The Virtual Observatory is starting to be used by astronomers in…

E-resources are inevitable, technology has grown and libraries are also adopting the technologies although adopting have many challenges to the library professionals. Whenever something new comes they need to update themselves. A study…

The conversion of scholarly journals to digital format is proceeding rapidly, especially for those from large commercial and learned society publishers. This conversion offers the best hope for survival for such publishers. The infamous…

Policy Brief on "Workforce Development in Astronomy and Astroinformatics", distilled from the corresponding panel that was part of the discussions during S20 Policy Webinar on Astroinformatics for Sustainable Development held on 6-7 July…

The work of astronomers is getting more complex and advanced as the progress of computer development occurs. With improved computing capabilities and increased data flow, more sophisticated software is required in order to interpret, and…

Over the past decade, astronomers have been using an increasingly larger number of web-based applications and archives to conduct their research. However, despite the early success in creating links across projects and data centers, the…

Making online resources more accessible to physically challenged library users is a topic deserving informed attention from astronomy librarians. Recommendations like WCAG 2.0 standards and section 508, in the United States, have proven…

Information exposing, in conjunction with technological innovations and the emergence of social media, altered the traditional roles of academic libraries and enabled librarians to become necessary partners in research. The role of academic…

Data volumes from multiple sky surveys have grown from gigabytes into terabytes during the past decade, and will grow from terabytes into tens (or hundreds) of petabytes in the next decade. This exponential growth of new data both enables…

On the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), we present a new interactive dictionary of astronomy and astrophysics, which contains about 7000 entries. This interdisciplinary and multicultural work is intended for…