Abstract
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) has a complex publications tracking program, which is coordinated by the NOAO Librarian. We track publications that use data from multiple observatories (Kitt Peak National Observatory [KPNO] in Tucson, Arizona, and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory [CTIO] in La Serena, Chile, as well as non-NOAO telescopes to which we grant community access at other observatories); multiple telescopes and instruments; multiple observing programs, including survey programs; and multiple datasets in the Science Data Archive (SDA) at NOAO. The growing SDA and new user services, such as the Data Lab, ensure that the use of NOAO archival datasets will become even more widespread and important for scientific discovery and research. Accurate and complete publication tracking is essential for reporting to our funding agencies, developing our programs, and determining our scientific contributions and impact. Setting policies to guide authors in specifying and acknowledging usage of NOAO data is an essential element in our ability to determine and document relevant publications. Developing systems to track the use of our telescope data and archival datasets is another critical element. New policies to track the use of our telescope data are being developed, new systems to track the use and reuse of datasets within our particular institutional context are being explored, and methods of linking our publications data with our dataset usage data are being devised. Updated policies for the proper and ethical usage, acknowledgement, and citation of our archival data are being written and reviewed.
Highlights
A high-quality telescope bibliography is an essential tool for developing and reporting on observatory programs; at the same time, acknowledgments of data usage are essential for making explicit the scientific contributions of an observatory, to funding agencies
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) has a complex publications tracking program, which is coordinated by the NOAO Librarian
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) has sought to develop our publications tracking policies and procedures to improve the efficiency and accuracy of our publications tracking, to provide guidance to telescope data users on appropriate acknowledgments in publications, and to develop and adhere to standards of professional ethics relating to data usage
Summary
A high-quality telescope bibliography is an essential tool for developing and reporting on observatory programs; at the same time, acknowledgments of data usage are essential for making explicit the scientific contributions of an observatory, to funding agencies. NOAO has a multifaceted publications tracking program, as we track the usage of telescope data from multiple sites, telescopes and instruments, survey programs, and data products and services. We collect astronomical data from multiple telescope/instrument combinations and survey programs and store and make accessible data in the Science Data Archive at NOAO. We contend with the issue of incomplete documentation on the data used in some publications. The documentation of the many parameters relating to use of our data (telescope/instrument combination; survey program; dataset; investigators) is timeconsuming and labor-intensive. Our revised policies and procedures address these challenges in identifying and documenting relevant publications in two ways: providing explicit and readily accessible acknowledgements statements and utilizing the NOAO Proposal ID as a source of details of data usage
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