Michael Kurtz, an astronomer and computer scientist at the Harvard--Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, will make a presentation titled "The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The Library of the Future -- Today" Thursday, May 6, at 4:30 p.m. in 105 Space Sciences Building on campus. Part of Cornell Library's Information Technology Forum series, the presentation, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the library and the Department of Astronomy.
Astronomy has long been the most digital of the sciences, so it is fitting that astronomers have built for themselves a complete, well used and useful electronic library. The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the central engine for astronomy's digital information system and it serves as a model for discipline-based information systems. Kurtz will describe the current status of ADS, how to use it, how it is used and what its place is in the general astronomical data environment.The ADS can be accessed on the World Wide Web through the Cornell Library Gateway (http://www.library.cornell.edu) or directly at http://adswww.harvard.edu/.
Kurtz has worked at the Harvard--Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., since receiving his Ph.D. in physics from Dartmouth University in 1982. From 1984 to 1993 he was the director of the center's image processing laboratory. In 1988 Kurtz conceived what has now become the NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. He built a prototype system in 1990 and has been formally associated with the ADS project since 1991.Since its first public release in February 1993, ADS has become the central element in astronomy's distributed digital library, which also includes the electronic journals and data center in Strasbourg, France. More than half of all bibliographic research in astronomy is now done online.
Kurtz is the author or co-author of over 100 technical articles on observational cosmology, the large-scale structure of the universe, data analysis techniques for astronomy and information retrieval systems. Among his recent publications is "ADS on WWW: Doubling Yearly for Five Years" co-authored with G. Eichhorn, A. Accomazzi, C.S. Grant and S.S. Murray in The Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, December 1998.
This is the fourth Cornell Library Information Technology Forum. The forum brings outstanding practitioners in the field of information technology to Cornell in support of the university's campuswide initiative to enhance information science research and instruction. This presentation is also part of the astronomy department's colloquium series.
For more information, contact Edward Weissman at 255-5754 or esw3@cornell.edu.
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