ADS collections. Since many years I collect complete bibliographies of all ADS abstracts for all solar-physics colleagues whose work interests me, over 900 by now. This solar author abstract collection consists of plain-text author-named files (from abbett to zweibel) that are easy to search with grep or an editor while limited to solar physics only, more effective than searching entire ADS or Google scholar. I expand and refresh this collection regularly, together with its 1:1 companion bibfile collection for use in bibtex. Newest zips in abs.zip and bib.zip. The scripts that I use are here.
From the plain-text abstract collection I also generate “solabs_author.html” abstract files with links to ADS. The prefix “solabs_” gives link uniqueness so that googling “solabs_<name>” (from solabs_abbett to solabs_zweibel) is often a fast way of getting a compact complete solar-physicist bibliography including abstracts on your screen. My bibtex test of each bibfile for error pruning also delivers yet more compact personal publication lists with ADS bibcodes and links.
Some authors have hard-to-separate namesakes (most =author:"Rutten, R." ADS entries are not mine). I weed out many by excluding the physics database and fine-tuning ADS search name strings. These also serve for directly getting ADS info for a solar physics colleague from your terminal command line by using scripts ads-name-open and ads-name-metrics with my namestring as parameter.
Citing with ADS. Fully automated with the above collections.
I usually find the ADS bibcode of a publication I want to cite by
searching off-line in my abstract
collection. For their citing I use my
citeads
LaTeX commands
that add ADS links to the resulting citation in the pdf. I simply
copy-paste the ADS bibcode into a \citeads
command in my
manuscript, that's all. One copy-paste, done! I often add
page links
so that the
reader directly sees the cited figure or equation along with the
reading, Wikipedia style.
The citations and .bbl
references are then produced
automatically by bibtexxing with my entire
concatenated bibfile
collection. BibTeX uses the first
entry for a bibcode and skips duplicates from coauthors. This way I
never have to distill a specific bib file for a manuscript.
Reading with ADS. I choose which publication to read by
searching in my abstract
collection. Wherever I am I then
get any publication that is available as pdf on ADS or via ADS
directly on my screen by
simply copy-pasting the ADS bibcode into terminal command
acads "1991A&A...252..203R"
where script acads
finds and opens the pdf file in my laptop if I had it already.
Otherwise it gets the pdf from ADS via a remote server with IP-checked
library licenses, using wrapper script getads
which remotely runs script
adscode2tmp
to
put the pdf in the remote /tmp dir, then pulling that over and putting
it as 1991AAp...252..203R.pdf
in my local /tmp
(in this
A&A example the double quotes accommodate the linux-troubling
ampersand in A&A which the macro changes to AAp.) It then opens this
publication in my prefered pdf viewer. That usually appears within a
few seconds. One copy-paste, there it is!
This works from anywhere (say a pensioner or covid home office) for any publication with silent license check, i.e., having a publisher pdf-symbol button on the ADS abstract page. Earlier these included A&A and ApJ (my staple diet). They became open-access per January 2022; before that they imposed license checking during the first year but acads opened them directly.
When I add an author name as in
acads "1991A&A...252..203R" rutten-rene
acads
stores this
article by my famous namesake
in directory .../lit/perauthor/rutten-rene
. The next time
acads
will find it
there and open it yet faster.
Reading silly. Publishers that require passing through their website I call “silly”. These never yield a silent-check publisher pdf-symbol button on ADS, not even for open access. Even then, and also when you are subscription-licensed, they impose a silly browser detour of pdf-button hunting through their silly website that they are sillily proud of. My script acads does not function for them and they can not be page linked via ADS. I then use acads with the ADS arXiv altcode found in my abstract collection to read the arXiv version, assuming its content is not too different from the published version. For page linking via ADS I also use the arXiv altcode if ADS does not select this itself already (its “classic” opener often does).
Non-arXived silly-publisher articles I have generally ignored because of the irritating effort formerly needed to get them: start vpn into a remote licensed library server, hunt laboriously via that server for the journal link there to the publisher and then through the usually bad publisher website for the desired publication and then finally for its local-license pdf button. Since 2018 they are easier to get with the Lean Library browser extension bypassing most silly-publisher detours if your remote library offers that. They cannot be page-linked so I still avoid citing them.
Publishing silly. If you publish with a silly publisher you should always post a prepublication on arXiv (don't use “preprint” or “paper” anymore in these electronic times), preferably the accepted and language-corrected version after the referee iteration to ensure that the content is the same, or update an earlier one to the eventually published content, or even keep the arXiv version “living” beyond the published version through subsequent improvements. Use the ADS-copied arXiv comment entry to specify identity or differences with the published version (as I did here and here, respectively).
Publishing in A&A. Sharing my latest
A&A
lessons:
Consumer report - Everything (submission, peer review,
language editing, production by EDP) was handled competently and went
smooth and pleasant. The web interfaces are transparent and easy to
use. The A&A language guide
is particularly instructive.
Citation linking - In its
readme.txt
for A&A authors EDP recommends my latex citation
linking to ADS
since 2011. The macros given
there were for “classic” ADS but keep working. Updated versions for
“new” ADS are given in my student-report
example.tex.
Page linking - My newer ADS page
linking
latex command to open specific
cited pages with pertinent figures, equations, etc. alongside the
article viewing works well in A&A. Example:
“Fig. 3” in the third line
here.
Movie and blinker linking - In this article we
added a new latex trick supported by A&A: direct links to open movie
versions and blinkers of figure panels given in the figure captions.
Solar physics publications often display selected movie frames as
successive image panels, or images or image cutouts side by side with
location markers for special features that should be inspected
comparatively. Actual movie playing and image blinking using your
cursor as self-controlled location marker are often much better
options. As usual our files for doing this are supplied as zips in
the A&A online-material data base, but here we also added
direct openers that furnish movie or blink inspection modes
directly while reading the article (by using latex \href
links
to specific application-opening files at an open site).
These also work in the arXiv version.
Example: blinkers at the end of the caption here
(try to spot fibrilar black-on-black retarded correspondence
in the 4-6 last one).
Acronym popups - One desirable latex trick in which I
did <not> succeed is to add popups for acronyms that spell out their
definition when you hover your cursor over them in on-screen pdf
viewing. It would be good if (in my little solar backyard), LTE,
NLTE, CRD, PRD, CS, SE, CE, MHD, GOL, NLFF, FOV, LOS, ROI, SDO, AIA,
HMI, EVE, SST, GST,
EST, RBT,
AO, MCAO, MOMFBD, SOT, PSP,
SolO, AR, QS, PIL, CME, MBP, MC, EB, QSEB, RBE, RRE,
PHE, RPW, MMF, MPS, KUL, AIP, IAP, IAS, IAC, ITA, IIA, LMSAL, JSOC, JPL,
NRL, NSO, HAO, LASP, CFA, ADS, AA, ApJ, MNRAS, SoPh, JQSRT, LRSP, EPS,
SPS, EAS, IAU, AAS, SPD, and the already nostalgic SIU,
SOZOU, KIS, LPARL, ESMOC, MDI, EIT, TRACE, VTT, SVST, DOT, NST, DST,
IBIS, CDC, IBM, TI, HP, DEC, VAX, VMS, IDL - (LOL), etc. would pop their
meaning. I earlier used command
pdftooltip
in pdfcomment.sty
for such popups but they
were insufficiently robust and worked too variedly between different
pdf viewers - even non-functioning in macOS Preview whereas (far
too) many solar
physicists remain Mac-challenged. No go so far. Help?
Revision marking - The A&A office showed a great trick
for revision marking. I used to do this by defining latex
environments as \revisiona{...}
and \revisionb{...}
that
boldfaced and colored new text, setting different colors for
successive revisions. They required embedding any change, large or
small or tiny, in such calls, a laborious but seemingly unavoidable
chore. Deletions I marked with a command inserting a special symbol.
I would then turn these commands on for single-column double-spaced
referee-style output and turn them off for journal-style output.
Subsequently I simply maintained all these calls set inactive to avoid
errors from undoing them and to keep a revision change record for
myself. They then sat also inactively in the accepted-version latex
files submitted to arXiv, but these can be freely downloaded whereas
you and your referees may prefer to keep peer-review changes private
(likewise, I do first remove all comment-line coauthor debates -
sometimes very private - with script
rmtexcomments).
The great trick is to not code revisions at all but to use
latexdiff
for difference marking between the old and new
version with a command as:
latexdiff --flatten --encoding="ascii" --append-textcmd="abstract,revision,LEt" ms_old.tex ms_new.tex > ms_diff.tex
where option --flatten
permits calling extra input files as
your macros and where any command-defined environment using text
inside (as A&A's \abstract{...}
and the language editor's
\LEt{...}
insertions) should be appended as shown. The
resulting ms_diff.tex
file produces a referee-style pdf with
all revisions clearly marked, including deletions. This way you do not
have to embed-code any change you make: you may alter, delete and add
as much as you want without further ado; you only have to keep the
preceding ms_old.tex
submission as reference. A lot easier!
Publishing in Solar Physics. Flower-casting
recent Solar Physics
experience:
Solar Physics garland 1 - Solar Physics furnished
outstanding
refereeing.
Solar Physics garland 2 - Solar Physics furnished
excellent scientific editing.
Efficient and pleasant affair up to acceptance
(and selection as “Editors' Choice”).
So far so good! - But then.........
Publishing with Springer. Springer's production of the above
Solar Physics article made me cast this dozen bitter malapropism
flowers after “He's been a long time in the firm and doesn't
like any nasturtiums cast at it” (Dorothy L. Sayers “Murder Must
Advertise”) where “he” is a
manager and “the firm” a whiffle-piffle commercial publisher:
Springer nasturtium 1 - Springer journals,
unfortunately including Solar Physics, never become public and
therefore arXiv posting is a must. Only ancient 1967 - 1996 Solar
Physics articles from the more glorious pre-Springer Reidel-Kluwer era
are freely available at ADS and can be
page-linked
via ADS.
Instead, direct page-linking of any Solar Physics article from 1997 up
to the present, even when open access,
requires an arXiv post.
Springer nasturtium 2 - Worse: at acceptance I got
astounding stipulations on self-archiving from Springer permitting to
arXive only the initial first-submission pre-peer-review manuscript.
This policy clashes head-on with the sound and commendable solar
physics practice of posting only when accepted.
However - soon after the acceptance email I got a Springer
email request for contractual copyright transfer via a webform for
“signing” a “Copyright Transfer Statement” including Springer's
self-archiving stipulations. Springer allowed me a few days to do
this. I suggest that first ArXiv posting your newest pdf with status
“accepted for Solar Physics” within these days is morally and
legally in order because the peer review was a nonpaid noncommercial
volunteered community service intended to improve your manuscript, the
resulting accepted version remains fully written and produced by you
and your coauthors, you still hold the copyright, you didn't sign
anything yet, and your posting then occurs before what Springer calls
its “processing” and regards/claims/guards commercially as
proprietary valuable. At this stage Springer didn't do anything yet.
The Solar Physics scientific editor spent effort in peer review
handling and should support and appreciate posting the resulting
version. The referee spent most effort so far and likely dislikes
finding only the raw version spread instead, insultingly disavowing
his/her
scrutiny and improvements. Springer's contributions so far are only
its latex and bibtex macros (clumsy, I helped repair), style guide
(bad), and its upload interface (the worst I have tried, unclear and
requiring unnecessary and cumbersome remote compilation for the
initial submission and peer-review iterations where just sending your
initial or latexdiffed pdf would suffice, as with A&A). Springer
supplies these meager services entirely in its own interest to keep you from
submitting traditional “manuscripts” as mailed stacks of unformatted
hand- or typewritten pages that Springer would really have to typeset
instead of your doing this work for free (where a better style guide
would make you deliver latex closer to their quaint
formats).
Upshot - post at acceptance with corresponding arXiv comment.
You will be in good company: ADS showed that many Solar Physics authors
including editors did this, likely in ignorance of Springer's ban of
this standard practice.
Me too - I posted my accepted version before I became aware
of this forbidding stipulation, unclearly formulated in a link I got
at acceptance - but if I had been aware of the ban I would still
have posted nevertheless for compliance with my institute's
Plan S green open
access
condition for permission
to publish in Solar Physics even though Springer disqualifies that
through hybrid double-dipping. In astronomy “green” open access
implies the immediate presence on ADS of a full-text pdf-symbol button
with a green open-access dot serving the accepted version directly
(side note: ADS might give arXiv pdf buttons serving a
not-(yet)-accepted version an orange dot rather than a green dot).
A&A and ApJ are fully public from 2022; earlier they were hybrid by
providing publisher pdf buttons on ADS that were green-dotted for
paid-for open access or became green-dotted already after one year, and they
welcomed arXiv posting without condition and therefore were
immediately greenable by adding a green-dotted arXiv pdf button, hence
permitted by my institute and directly page-linkable from
latex
(also mandatory at my institute).
MNRAS is similarly hybrid with a three-year wait but welcomes arXiv greening.
Springer never does and never yields
direct pdf buttons on ADS (“silly” publisher).
Springer nasturtium 3 - Springer starts its
“processing” after your copyright transfer or your pledge to pay.
It consists of what Springer calls “copyediting”, meaning language
and style adaptations - actually mainly done by the Solar Physics
scientific editor - (which you may not copy to your arXiv post so
that the publication diverges in this comma-level textual detail), and
then what Springer calls “typesetting” - as if they still melt
and pour lead to cast type to press on paper to produce proofs,
whereas you yourself type 99% of the latex obeying the crummy
Springer macros and check their functioning yourself by test-compiling
with the crummy Springer upload interface while not getting 99% (or
any) of the non-crummy Springer earnings and extraordinary profits
from your work. Nor do Donald Knuth and Leslie Lamport, the true
typesetters. Nor does the referee who after you volunteers most
effort in this “bizarre triple-pay system”
(“predator” publisher).
Springer nasturtium 4 - Springer decided automatedly
and erroneously what my affiliation is and whether that institution
pays for Springer open access, without asking me and regardless of the
affiliations specified in my manuscript - then Springer obstinately
kept disbelieving my immediate denial during many weeks.
Springer nasturtium 5 - Springer could not handle
copyright transfer when its webform automation failed - then
Springer resorted to falsification. This pleased me because I never
got nor saw nor “signed” a “Copyright Transfer
Statement” and so was free to post and cast as I like.
Springer nasturtium 6 - Springer destroyed my 118
citation links
in the
proofs, while they worked with the Springer macros and survived the
Springer upload processing and copy editing, giving me confidence that
they would work - but they did not and Springer refused repair,
arrogantly, still in the proof iteration when fixing was trivial.
When I protested Springer took a full month to re-affirm this
refusal and so motivated these bitter casts.
Springer nasturtium 7 - Springer mucked up my text
yet further by adding weird errors in subsequent proofs - luckily
the Solar Physics scientific editor caught most. Be aware that every
Springer proof must be checked minutely throughout, beyond reported
modifications and again including everything that was
in order in a previous one.
Springer nasturtium 8 - Springer will not react
non-automated at all when you report failures in Springer macros,
interfaces, protocols, production. Instead, Springer will “ticket”
you with “escalation” into a black hole. I suffered both treatments
until I identified Springer programmers and managers with email
addresses to trigger response.
Springer nasturtium 9 - Springer needed 100 days for
my acceptance-to-publication processing (instead of the advertized 17)
-
plus 120 emails (not counting automated).
Springer nasturtium 10 - Springer forbids arXiv
posting beyond your initial submission (nasturtium 2), but
nevertheless requires a final arXiv correction that specifies the eventual
publication within that text (but ADS shows that most Solar Physics
authors including editors do not do this).
Springer stipulates a lengthy ill-phrased formula, but essentially
wants the journal reference and DOI inserted with the acknowledgements
at the end, an illogical and ineffective place. I suggest to instead
replace the ugly incomplete manuscript banner with these by adapting
the (obtuse) Springer style files (as I did
here).
Springer nasturtium 11 - Springer forbids posting the
final version
on your institute or sponsor website (permitted explicitly by A&A and
ApJ) during a one-year embargo period - but instead maintaining the
arXiv pdf there not only during this embargo year but forever (as my
institute does here)
serves well to circumvent Springer mutilations of your article. Then
comment via arXiv on ADS that it is better to read the
non-Springer-mutilated arXiv version (as I did
here) and
also in the arXiv post itself (as I did here).
Springer nasturtium 12 - Springer deemed
their version of my article
the
answer to every question in the universe and therefore charged 42 Euro
per download initially (their Deep Thought yielding triple my
customary price at A&A). This
version
remains free and
better.
In hindsight it is unfortunate that C. de Jager and Z. Švestka
started Solar Physics in 1967 as proprietary venture of a commercial
publisher (Reidel > Kluwer > Springer), similar to De Jager's start of
the journal Space Science Reviews in 1962 at Reidel which liked its
success and pushed De Jager to start another journal.
A year later S.R. Pottasch and J.-L. Steinberg did much better, urged
by J.H. Oort who was upset about the commercial nature of Z. Kopal's
new journal Astrophysics and Space Science also at Reidel, and founded
A&A as a non-profit astronomer organization that contracts production
to a publisher (Springer > EDP), similarly to the non-profit AAS
contracting ApJ production out (Univ. Chicago > IoP).
Some editorial boards of well-established Elseviers journals have quit
the over-profitable publisher
and started a fresh non-profit
make-over; following suit should suit the editors of Solar Physics.
Publishing on arXiv. The sad Springer saga above made me not
offer my next study to Solar Physics but only post it on arXiv as
Lingezicht Astrophysics
Report. Its
version
here
is the living latest
and retains an
epilogue
on pros and cons of selfpublishing. I update the arXiv version
irregularly. Any reader can easily inspect all differences (or lack
of difference) between any pair of arXiv versions by dowloading the
source material for each and run latexdiff
as shown under A&A
above. Similarly, inspection of tex and macros in my source
material details my tricks including hyperlink generation.