Journal | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1994-1998 | ||||||
Papers | %El. | Papers | %El. | Papers | %El. | Papers | %El. | Papers | %El. | Papers | %El. | |
A&A | 1300 | 1.3 | 1223 | 2.9 | 1394 | 5.3 | 1525 | 6.6 | 1569 | 4.1 | 5711 | 4.8 |
A&AS | 236 | 42.8 | 269 | 42.0 | 438 | 28.4 | 298 | 49.0 | 159 | 43.3 | 1164 | 38.9 |
ApJ(L) | 2064 | 0.3 | 2121 | 0.4 | 2166 | 1.1 | 2255 | 0.8 | 2235 | 0.6 | 10841 | 0.6 |
ApJS | 255 | 12.9 | 138 | 25.4 | 116 | 22.4 | 115 | 16.5 | 102 | 11.6 | 726 | 17.2 |
PASP | 158 | 7.0 | 161 | 4.3 | 153 | 2.0 | 159 | 2.5 | 181 | 2.8 | 812 | 3.7 |
AJ | 425 | 10.4 | 504 | 14.1 | 477 | 9.2 | 460 | 8.3 | 501 | 9.4 | 2367 | 10.3 |
MNRAS | 656 | 1.4 | 752 | 2.7 | 775 | 0.8 | 833 | 1.6 | 980 | 1.0 | 3996 | 1.5 |
Category | June 1994 | June 1995 | June 1996 | Oct. 1997 | Oct. 1998 | Oct. 1999 | ||||||||
N | Mb | N | Mb | N | Mb | N | Mb | N | Mb | N | Mb | Std | ||
I | Astrometric | 151 | 1258 | 158 | 1292 | 167 | 1460 | 199 | 2502 | 207 | 2777 | 210 | 2798 | 113 |
II | Photometric | 144 | 307 | 152 | 320 | 153 | 305 | 187 | 467 | 194 | 525 | 198 | 563 | 110 |
III | Spectroscopic | 119 | 162 | 126 | 172 | 125 | 173 | 158 | 233 | 163 | 245 | 170 | 249 | 100 |
IV | Cross-Identification | 16 | 89 | 16 | 89 | 15 | 83 | 17 | 91 | 17 | 91 | 17 | 91 | 5 |
V | Combined Data | 63 | 367 | 63 | 372 | 65 | 365 | 76 | 557 | 84 | 728 | 86 | 842 | 53 |
VI | Miscellaneous | 43 | 157 | 49 | 188 | 50 | 502 | 70 | 634 | 71 | 634 | 73 | 653 | 46 |
VII | Non-stellar | 115 | 361 | 119 | 280 | 122 | 371 | 157 | 425 | 178 | 453 | 180 | 453 | 121 |
VIII | Radio | 24 | 269 | 28 | 269 | 29 | 269 | 39 | 414 | 46 | 615 | 53 | 853 | 51 |
IX | High-Energy | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 6 | 77 | 8 | 79 | 10 | 200 | 10 |
J/A+A | A&A | 58 | 2 | 98 | 4 | 158 | 8 | 299 | 16 | 371 | 22 | 424 | 26 | 424 |
J/A+AS | A&A Supp. | 123 | 12 | 235 | 24 | 350 | 33 | 544 | 55 | 698 | 73 | 817 | 83 | 817 |
J/AJ | Astron. J. | 15 | 1 | 91 | 6 | 126 | 10 | 252 | 21 | 295 | 25 | 345 | 31 | 345 |
J/ApJS | ApJ Suppl. | 13 | 1 | 36 | 4 | 52 | 7 | 111 | 14 | 147 | 16 | 165 | 18 | 165 |
J/(P)AZh | Russian Astron. J. | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 18 | 0.2 | 26 | 0.5 | 49 | 0.9 | 49 |
J | From Journals | 233 | 17 | 517 | 40 | 766 | 60 | 1404 | 118 | 1771 | 151 | 2087 | 180 | 2087 |
Grand Total | 908 | 2986 | 1228 | 3022 | 1492 | 3588 | 2313 | 5517 | 2739 | 6299 | 3084 | 6882 | 2692 |
Jaschek ([1989]) defined a catalogue as
a long list of ordered data of a specific kind,
collected for a particular purpose.
What a long list means has evolved dramatically
in the last decade:
the new way of processing data actually resulted in a tremendous increase
in both the number and the volume of the astronomical catalogues.
To illustrate the evolution in the domain of catalogued surveys,
one can remember that the largest catalogues in the beginning of this century,
called the Durchmusterungen -- the Bonner,
Cordoba and Cape Durchmusterungen --
provided only a position and a visual estimate of the brightness
for
stars,
and required over 50 years to be completed. Today, a catalogue
gathering similar parameters
--
with an accuracy one order of magnitude better -- is
well represented by the USNO-A2.0 ([Monet 1998]) which contains roughly
sources, almost three orders of magnitude larger.
Even larger catalogues are being built: let us quote the
GSC-II (Greene et al. 1998)
which should contain all optical sources brighter than
magnitude,
which can be estimated to about
objects.
The existence of these new mega-catalogues -- which are, in fact, rather giga-catalogues -- does however not mean that the old catalogues can just be ignored: virtually any astronomical object can be subject to variability, maybe over periods of several centuries, and the discrepancies between old and newer results have therefore to be analyzed.
Another important source of tabular material consists in tables published in the astronomical literature. These tables are now almost always originally in digital form, and contain highly processed data which usage can be precious; access to these electronic data is also essential for maintaining the large databases like SIMBAD or NED.
The potential interest of the reusability of these tables led the Editors of the leading astronomical journals to distribute the tabular material in electronic form. The first realisations for A&A started in 1993 (see Ochsenbein & Lequeux [1995]), and Table 1 summarizes the frequency of the availability of electronic tabular data among the publications in some of the main astronomical journals in the recent years: not surprisingly, the Supplement Series, which were created essentially for the presentation of the observational results, show a high rate of associated electronic data.
Copyright The European Southern Observatory (ESO)