bibcode

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{{short description|Code used to identify references in certain astronomical data systems}}

The bibcode (also known as the refcode) is a compact identifier used by several astronomical data systems to uniquely specify literature references.

Adoption

The Bibliographic Reference Code (refcode) was originally developed to be used in SIMBAD and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), but it became a de facto standard and is now used more widely, for example, by the NASA Astrophysics Data System, which coined and prefers the term "bibcode".{{ cite book| url=http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/refcode/refcode-paper.html| chapter= NED and SIMBAD Conventions for Bibliographic Reference Coding| title=Information & On-Line Data in Astronomy|editor= Daniel Egret|editor2= Miguel A. Albrecht|publisher= Kluwer Academic Publishers|date=1995|isbn =0-7923-3659-3|author= M. Schmitz|author2= G. Helou|author3= P. Dubois|author4= C. LaGue|author5= B.F. Madore|author6= H. G. Corwin Jr.|author7= S. Lesteven|name-list-style= amp|access-date= 2011-06-22| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110607153038/http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/refcode/refcode-paper.html| archive-date= 7 June 2011 | url-status= live}}{{cite web|url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/help_pages/data.html|title= The ADS Data, help page|publisher= NASA ADS |access-date=November 5, 2007| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071014195855/http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/help_pages/data.html| archive-date= 14 October 2007 | url-status= live}}

Format

The code has a fixed length of 19 characters and has the form

:YYYYJJJJJVVVVMPPPPA

where YYYY is the four-digit year of the reference and JJJJJ is a code indicating where the reference was published. In the case of a journal reference, VVVV is the volume number, M indicates the section of the journal where the reference was published (e.g., L for a letters section), PPPP gives the starting page number, and A is the first letter of the last name of the first author. Periods (.) are used to fill unused fields and to pad fields out to their fixed length if too short; padding is done on the right for the publication code and on the left for the volume number and page number. Page numbers greater than 9999 are continued in the M column. The 6-digit article ID numbers (in lieu of page numbers) used by the Physical Review publications since the late 1990s are treated as follows: The first two digits of the article ID, corresponding to the issue number, are converted to a lower-case letter (01 = a, etc.) and inserted into column M. The remaining four digits are used in the page field.

Examples

Some examples of bibcodes are:

class="wikitable"
Bibcode

! Reference

[https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1974AJ.....79..819H 1974AJ.....79..819H]

| {{cite journal

|last=Heintz |first=W. D.

|date=1974

|title=Astrometric study of four visual binaries

|journal=The Astronomical Journal

|volume=79 |pages=819–825

|doi=10.1086/111614

|bibcode = 1974AJ.....79..819H }}

[https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1924MNRAS..84..308E 1924MNRAS..84..308E]

| {{cite journal

|last=Eddington |first=A. S.

|date=1924

|title=On the relation between the masses and luminosities of the stars

|journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

|volume=84 |issue=5

|pages=308–332

|bibcode = 1924MNRAS..84..308E

| doi = 10.1093/mnras/84.5.308 |doi-access=free

}}

[https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1970ApJ...161L..77K 1970ApJ...161L..77K]

| {{cite journal

|last1=Kemp |first1=J. C.

|last2=Swedlund |first2=J. B.

|last3=Landstreet |first3=J. D.

|last4=Angel |first4=J. R. P.

|date=1970

|title=Discovery of circularly polarized light from a white dwarf

|journal=The Astrophysical Journal Letters

|volume=161 |pages=L77–L79

|doi=10.1086/180574

|bibcode = 1970ApJ...161L..77K }}

[https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004PhRvL..93o0801M 2004PhRvL..93o0801M]

| {{cite journal

|last1=Mukherjee |first1=M.

|last2=Kellerbauer |first2=A.

|last3=Beck |first3=D.

|last4=Blaum |first4=K.

|last5=Bollen |first5=G.

|last6=Carrel |first6=F.

|last7=Delahaye |first7=P.

|last8=Dilling |first8=J.

|last9=George |first9=S.

|last10=Guénaut |first10=C.

|last11=Herfurth |first11=F.

|last12=Herlert |first12=A.

|last13=Kluge |first13=H.-J.

|last14=Köster |first14=U.

|last15=Lunney |first15=D.

|last16=Schwarz |first16=S.

|last17=Schweikhard |first17=L.

|last18=Yazidjian |first18=C.

|display-authors=3

|date=2004

|title=The Mass of 22Mg

|journal=Physical Review Letters

|volume=93 |issue=15

|pages=150801

|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.150801

|pmid=15524861

|bibcode = 2004PhRvL..93o0801M |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/798313/files/PhysRevLett.93.150801.pdf

}}

See also

References