Finding relevant, high-quality research papers is a continual need for researchers. In keeping with the open science principles of making data findable and accessible, Science Explorer (SciX) makes this process easy.
A collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and NASA, the SciX digital library portal assists astronomers, planetary scientists, heliophysicists, Earth scientists, biologists, and physicists with finding literature for their work. The powerful and easy-to-use search function provides a range of filters to help researchers narrow their focus to the most useful results for their area of study.
SciX is the successor to the highly acclaimed Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which operated for over 25 years and was shown to increase the research efficiency of astrophysicists and astronomers by at least 6%. The success of ADS spurred an expansion of this capability to all relevant science areas, encompassing astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics, planetary science, and biological and physical sciences.
The system currently holds over 20 million records, including both refereed publications and all arXiv, ESS Open Archive, and EarthArXiv preprints. Thanks to the library’s roots in astrophysics, this includes over 99% of the refereed literature in astrophysics, but the other disciplines are catching up fast — 95% of Earth science publications are expected to be included by the end of 2024.
SciX represents an important tool in NASA’s suite of open science initiatives. It is designed with collaboration and interdisciplinary research in mind, and the team continues to innovate in pursuit of the best possible scientific digital library.