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Seeking and Finding the Aerospace Literature From 1996 – 2010:

And, The Winner Is . . . . . . . . . . . Google

Abstract

The Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR) has been a standard resource in libraries since its inception in 1963. Beginning in 1996 the title was only available online and recently NASA has limited online access to the most recent two years. This paper compares the indexing in STAR with other standard resources such as the NASA Technical Reports Server, the Aerospace and High Technology Index from ProQuest, NTIS, and Google. It finds that Google has the most comprehensive indexing of the STAR entries.

Introduction

In 1963, NASA, through its Office of Scientific and Technical Information, began publishing the Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR). This abstract journal was a mainstay in engineering libraries for over three decades. In 1996, beginning with Volume 34, NASA ceased production of the hardcopy version of STAR, and continued with an online only version. For several years all volumes of STAR beginning with 1996 were posted and accessible online.

It is now NASA’s policy to post online only issues from the current volume, plus the full previous volume. In December, 2009, users could access all issues of Volume 46, (2008), and Volume 47, (2009). In January 2010, NASA removed all issues published in Volume 46, (2008), so that only issues from Volume 47, (2009), and those published in Volume 48, (2010), were available. Thus, the availability of issues varies from one to two years, depending upon the point in the publication year.

The purposes of this research are twofold:

First, to determine if the online NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) completely indexes all of the NASA generated papers indexed in STAR. Based upon a paper presented at the 2009 ASEE Conference, “NACA / NASA Document Indexing: 1915 – 1995,”1 it is expected that the NTRS will duplicate the level of NASA document indexing provided by STAR.

The second purpose is to determine if there is indexing available for the non-NASA generated papers which are contained in STAR. STAR indexes material in a wide variety of aerospace related subject areas, from a number of sources, and it is uncertain how well the non-NASA papers are indexed.

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Thompson, L. (2010, June), Seeking And Finding The Aerospace Literature From 1996 2010: And, The Winner Is . . . Google Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--15980