[vsnet-chat 1734] Re: Variable Star Designations in The Astronomer

[bas@lowell.Lowell.Edu (Brian Skiff)]

[bit by the Unix mail devil again!  full message below]

     I do indeed have Mike's lists, and of course Takamizawa's list is also
posted at the VSNET site.  But I am taking the viewpoint of the "typical"
professional astronomer who is not familiar with the amateur activity, and
who will often have the attitude that "if it's not on the Net, it doesn't
exist".  Those folks will look up a new variable they happen to find (say
in the automated surveys that are getting going now) in SIMBAD and perhaps
the most recent GCVS compilation---and no further!, find nothing at that spot,
and subsequently report it as a new variable.  _All_ of Dan Kaiser's and _all_
of Lennart Dahlmark's variables have appeared in the IBVS, but only a few of
Mike's stars have appeared there, and alas none of those by the Japanese
observers.  Hardly any professional astronomers even know that "The Astronomer"
exists, much less the VSOLJ bulletin, and fewer still would consider them to be
"real" journals, since not only are they not indexed by SIMBAD, but they're put
out by amateurs.  How good the journals are or how rigorous your verification
process is doesn't enter into it!  And if you think the professionals are
un-hip to the literature, just ask amateurs who have been attracted into the
game by the ready availability of CCDs.  The amateurs reading vsnet-chat are
wizards by comparison!
     On a more pragmatic level, if you want to argue the case with the SIMBAD
folks that the amateur journals should be indexed, you'll have to show that
these publications are being used by the GCVS group (at least), and perhaps
elsewhere in the professional community.  If you can show that 'The Astronomer'
or the VSOLJ journal (or RASNZ, etc.) has been cited in mainstream journals,
that would be a big incentive for them to index it.  The 'bibliothequers' who
actually do the indexing are completely swamped by the journals they already do
cover:  recall that the "Monthly Notices" now comes out thrice monthly!  I do
not know who actually decides about adding new journals to their list, but a
good place to start is with Suzanne Laloe (suzanne.laloe@obspm.fr), who is the
honcho on the SIMBAD bibliography.  You might write to ask her reactions on the
subject.  My guess is she'll be reluctant.  It may help if you can supply them
(Obs. de Paris - Meudon) with a set of back issues if they do not already get
it by subscription.  If you're to make any headway, it will almost certainly
help if you can provide them with files giving object-associations (a list of
what objects are mentioned in which articles, in a very specific format) for a
substantial subset of archival issues.  Basically this saves them from having
to do it.  I've done quite a lot of this for them (including the first 70
volumes of the ApJ), and can offer to do the work if desired.  Stuff indexed by
SIMBAD gets shared with the ADS, so they do not need to be dealt with
separately.  I'm told the ARI-Heidelberg group who produced the "Astronomy &
Astrophysics Abstracts" are gearing up to go on-line, but have no idea how
this is going to mesh with the ADS, which has in effect stolen their business.
(A large number of observatory libraries cancelled their subscriptions to AAA
because of the high cost and availability of on-line resources.)  Having the
old Jahresberichts on-line would be a tremendous task, but also immensely
valuable.  (Somebody do the Houzeau & Lancaster bibliography too!)  Anyway, if
AAA has indexed the amateur journals all along, as Kato-san suggests, then
perhaps eventually they will become more readily available.  But I don't think
there will be object-wise indexes unless someone does them.
     Perhaps the interested parties can continue this discussion privately
rather than wasting bandwidth on the mailing-lists.

\Brian

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