Subject: Re: World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Astronomy and Astrophysics

From: [email-masked] (anton koekemoer)
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 94 00:07:56 EST

Dear friends,

Just thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the CERN astronomy listings,
particularly in view of the most recent modifications to these pages.

I've been watching the CERN listing over the last few months; he has basically
followed the AstroWeb categorization of resources as well as our nomenclature.
However, as Don points out, there are a few resources in these CERN lists which
are not in AstroWeb. [** but see PS at the end of this email ]. I notice also
that he is now working on a form to allow additions to be made to the database.
Apparently this is very recent, perhaps initiated by the correspondence with
Bob. He has also still retained all his other pages and so any potential user
still has to wade through both sets of databases (ie AstroWeb and these CERN
lists) before being certain that a particular resource is or is not available.

Basically, I would second Don's suggestion of inviting him to become part of
AstroWeb since these two databases are now really serving the same function and
I would guess are at least 90% redundant. I would like to make the point though
that the CERN listing should then not simply point to an AstroWeb page, but
actually *become* an AstroWeb page in the same spirit as all of our current
pages, and updated from the AstroWeb database, ie without the current
redundancy. Whether or not he will become a "full" or "associate" member is
something to discuss, presumably with him as well as amongst ourselves.

						Best regards,
						 - anton.

** PS whether these sites are in fact official seems to me to be a matter of
opinion. I have my own list of sites which I have found by random exploration,
but which are not publicly advertised anywhere (eg MPIA Heidelberg, Steward
Observatory, Tokyo University Astronomy/RadioAstronomy groups etc) and I won't
add these to the database until they are announced publicly, eg in NCSA -... or
in the CERN listing. Here now I have a question - precisely how are these CERN
lists created? I had always thought of the CERN listings as being somehow
"official", ie any URL listed in them is officially sanctioned by whichever
institution it represents, and had assumed that CERN somehow acts as "the"
official clearing-house for URLs, a bit like the NIC's in the US. But if all
they do is copy resources from lists such as AstroWeb, assuming implicitly that
the sources are "official", then adding new resources becomes something of a
catch-22 situation.