Why are there no DOIs for older papers in Astronomy & Astrophysics

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Why are there no DOIs for older papers in the journal Astronomy &
Astrophysics?

That is bad enough in itself, but when investigating that problem (which
I do from time to time, as many other journals now have DOIs for older
papers), I noticed that the webserver aa.springer.de which hosted older
papers no longer works. According to aanda.org, older papers should be
accessed via ADS (where they had already been for a while anyway). At
least if nothing fancy is done that is fine; why re-invent the wheel?
As is now obvious, ADS is more stable than some journal websites.
(MNRAS has DOIs for older papers and has them accessible via a
publisher's website, but there are some mistakes in that papers are
assigned to the wrong issues, i.e. browsing by issue returns a list of
papers some of which are actually in another issue. Bad enough, but the
DOIs, which use a sensible scheme containing volume, issue, and first
page, are based on the wrong classification.)

[Eric Flesch]

... I noticed that the webserver aa.springer.de which hosted older
papers no longer works.

Yes, and as you did, I went to ADS for those papers.

As is now obvious, ADS is more stable than some journal websites.

But then we are dependent on a single source...

there are some mistakes in that papers are
assigned to the wrong issues ...

Yes, or wrong year of publication or something else. When that
happens I have to list them out and find it. But one time even that
did not work, recently -- one paper would not come up from the ADS
search boxes. So I located its reference amongst references for
another work, and when I clicked it, it came right up. I had written
out that reference exactly correctly into the ADS search boxes, to no
avail. Sorry I can't remember which paper that was, mid 1990's.

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by Eric Flesch

... I noticed that the webserver aa.springer.de which hosted older
papers no longer works.

Yes, and as you did, I went to ADS for those papers.

As is now obvious, ADS is more stable than some journal websites.

But then we are dependent on a single source...

I'm pretty sure that ADS has mirror sites. (They certainly did in the
past. In these days of fast internet connections, I don't bother trying
to find a closer site (which might not necessarily be faster). It
appears to be well run. I'm sure that they have backups.

Post by Eric Flesch

there are some mistakes in that papers are
assigned to the wrong issues ...

When they become aware of a problem, ADS are usually quick to fix it.
The comment immediately above refers to MNRAS. I've contact them and
they are looking into it.

Post by Eric Flesch
Yes, or wrong year of publication or something else. When that
happens I have to list them out and find it. But one time even that
did not work, recently -- one paper would not come up from the ADS
search boxes. So I located its reference amongst references for
another work, and when I clicked it, it came right up. I had written
out that reference exactly correctly into the ADS search boxes, to no
avail. Sorry I can't remember which paper that was, mid 1990's.

Note that ADS has several databases, and there are various defaults
depending on various things. You can set them if you have an account.
Note also that the modern form and classic forms have different
defaults. If your defaults don't include, say, the physics database
(just the astronomy one, for example), then the search might not find
it, but of course once you have the link you can access it.

I still use the classic interface for simple stuff. The new interface
takes some getting used to, but it does offer more functionality. For
example, one can generate a list of papers (practically, for certain
journals and/or date ranges) which are not on arXiv. Turns out that
10--20 per cent of papers from the major astronomy journals are not on
arXiv, presumably for a variety of reasons (luddites not caring about
arXiv, people annoyed with their arrogance even though they've had no
real problems, people who are banned (sometimes for good reasons,
sometimes not), people who just don't bother anymore because there are
so many things wrong with the way it is run (I'm in that group; I've
also removed all links to arXiv (including to my own papers) on my web
pages).

I've used ADS quite a bit in the last few years. It is a great
resource. It's worth learning the new interface---not to replicate what
you can do with the classic interface, but for the new stuff. The staff
are helpful and polite. Those not familiar with it should take a day
off to get up to speed. If you can't figure out how to do something,
send them an email; they usually have a solution.