Management of Catalogs at CDS

International audienceVizieR (Ochsenbein et al. 2000) provides access to the most complete library of published astronomical catalogs (data tables and associated data) available online and organized in a self-documented database. (There were 11769 catalogs in November 2013.) Indexing the metadata in the VizieR search engine requires the expertise of scientists and documentalists for each catalog ingested. The metadata go into an efficient position search engine that is adapted to big data. (For instance, the GAIA simulation catalog has more than two billion objects). Information in VizieR tables is well described and can be retrieved easily. The search results provide visibility to catalogs with tools and protocols to disseminate data to the Virtual Observatory, thus giving scientists data that is reusable by dedicated tools (e.g. image vizualisation tools). Also, new functionality allows users to extract all photometric data in catalogs for a given position. Finally, it is also through cross-identification tools that the CDS becomes a partner in producing large data sets, such as GAIA

TWiki: A Collaborative Space of Internal Documentation, an Efficient Way to Work Together

International audienceThe documentalists at Strasbourg astronomical Data Center (CDS) mine publications in order to update the SIMBAD and VizieR databases with astronomical data. The process of mining publications is quite complex and, over time, the databases and tools used evolve as the field of astronomy evolves. The ingest process needs to be agreed upon, well described, and shared by all involved. This requires specific knowledge and mutual support among the documentalists in interaction with computer engineers and astronomers. The documentalists at CDS have therefore organized and enriched their internal documentation; the wiki collaborative tool is an efficient framework to do so. For more than a decade, the CDS has been developing a "TWiki" collaborative space. Recently, we have created a working group to refurbish the collaborative space and it is now better structured and clearer and this provides new functionality, giving the user a better experience

A New Bibliographical Feature for SIMBAD: Highlighting the Most Relevant Papers for One Astronomical Object

International audienceThe number of bibliographical references attached to an astronomical object in SIMBAD is has been growing continuously over the years. It is important for astronomers to retrieve the most relevant papers, those that give important information about the object of study. This is not easy since there can be many references attached to one object. For instance, in 2014, more than 15,000 objects had been attached to more than 50 references. The location of the object's citations inside the paper and its number of occurrences are important criteria to extract the most relevant papers. Since 2008, because of the DJIN application (a semi-automatic tool to search for object names in full text) this information has been collected. For each article associated with an astronomical object, we know where it is cited and how many times and with which name it appears. Since September 2013, the users of SIMBAD web site can choose to retrieve the most relevant references for an astronomical object depending on its location in the publication. A new formula to sort references by combining all locations, number of occurrences, total number of objects studied, citation count, and year is presented in this paper

Working Together at CDS: The Symbiosis Between Astronomers, Documentalists, and IT Specialists

International audienceSince the CDS (Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg) began a little more than forty years ago, astronomers, documentalists, and information technology (IT) specialists have been working together. The synergy between these three professional groups support the core of the work and is becoming more and more crucial with the increasing volume and complexity of data handled. The astronomers use their understanding of the subject and of users' needs to help to maintain the accuracy and the relevance of data. The computer engineers enhance these data by maintaining the database framework and continuing to add useful tools to retrieve and reuse this content. Finally, the documentalists, by definition, manage the content. They do so with the help of IT tools developed at CDS; they analyze the publications, extract the relevant information, verify the data, make comparisons with existing data, add the useful information in VizieR and SIMBAD, and confer with astronomers to make corrections, if needed. After an historical review of the evolution in data and the way data have been provided at CDS, we will further discuss the fundamental roles of the three professional groups to support the mission of the CDS