[fitsbits] [EXT] DOI for FITS standard document?

[William Pence]

Simply getting a DOI for the latest FITS Standard document may not solve the more basic issue of making that document more widely known and accessible to the astronomical community. As far as I can tell, the latest version 4.0 of the FITS Standard is not catalogued in the ADS (Astrophysical Data System) bibliographic service.  Currently, the ADS appears to only catalogue the published A&A Supplement versions from 2010 and 2001. Would getting a DOI automatically cause the ADS to include it?  Submitting version 4.0 of the FITS document to the arXiv archive service would be one simple path to getting it picked up by the ADS. 

Also, Lucio asked:
 “Concerning the 4.0 version of the standard its current official repository is at HEASARC https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html. I would like to know if (the emeritus) Bill Pence, who originally set up the site, has any comment on this (particularly on long term maintenance).”
While I cannot make an authoritative reply, I don’t foresee any issues with maintaining the FITS Website at the HEASARC for the next few years at least. Support for the FITS format is a central requirement for the HEASARC data archive, so it is in their interest to maintain information about FITS. 

Regards,
Bill

> On May 1, 2020, at 11:34 AM, THIERRY FORVEILLE via fitsbits <fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu> wrote:
> 
>    Dear Lucio,
> 
>> Still concerning the 4.0 version, I am rather reluctant to consider it for
>> a journal publication, since de facto it merges (though with adjustments
>> and language editing) stuff mostly already published.
>> 
>> A 4.1 or 5.0 with substantial improvements would be a different story, but
>> the discussion on long-name keywords, which we should resume, seems to
>> indicate this is not an easy or fast task.
>> 
>> (but if Thierry could get a DOI without publication we should not discard
>> this possibility)
>> 
> The latter was indeed was indeed what I was thinking of. I agree that the
> update does not justify a journal publication.
> 
>> I have no idea of the procedure to get a DOI for an "unpublished" document
>> (although nowadays, with the phasing out of HARDCOPY publication, what
>> does it mean exactly "published" ?), of how official should be the
>> requestor of a DOI.
>> 
> I am not sure of the exact limits, but DOIs seem nowadays to be attributed fairly
> liberally. CDS for instance attributes DOIs to the datasets that they archive,
> some of which come from a journal article which has its own different DOI.
> 
> Best,
> Thierry
> 
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