Bibcode

Bibcode

Full name	Bibliographic code
Introduced	1990s
No.of digits	19
Check digit	none
Example	1924MNRAS..84..308E

Thebibcode(also known as therefcode) is a compact identifier used by severalastronomicaldata systems to uniquely specify literature references.

Adoption

The Bibliographic Reference Code (refcode) was originally developed to be used inSIMBADand theNASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database(NED), but it became a de facto standard and is now used more widely, for example, by the NASAAstrophysics Data System,which coined and prefers the term "bibcode".

Format

The code has a fixed length of 19 characters and has the form

YYYYJJJJJVVVVMPPPPA

whereYYYYis the four-digit year of the reference andJJJJJis a code indicating where the reference was published. In the case of a journal reference,VVVVis the volume number,Mindicates the section of the journal where the reference was published (e.g.,Lfor a letters section),PPPPgives the starting page number, andAis the first letter of the last name of the first author. Periods (.) are used to fill unused fields and to pad fields out to their fixed length if too short; padding is done on the right for the publication code and on the left for the volume number and page number.Page numbers greater than 9999 are continued in theMcolumn. The 6-digit article ID numbers (in lieu of page numbers) used by the Physical Review publications since the late 1990s are treated as follows: The first two digits of the article ID, corresponding to the issue number, are converted to a lower-case letter (01 = a, etc.) and inserted into columnM.The remaining four digits are used in the page field.

Examples

Some examples of bibcodes are:

Bibcode	Reference
1974AJ.....79..819H	Heintz, W. D. (1974). "Astrometric study of four visual binaries".The Astronomical Journal.79:819–825.Bibcode:1974AJ.....79..819H.doi:10.1086/111614.
1924MNRAS..84..308E	Eddington, A. S. (1924)."On the relation between the masses and luminosities of the stars".Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.84(5): 308–332.Bibcode:1924MNRAS..84..308E.doi:10.1093/mnras/84.5.308.
1970ApJ...161L..77K	Kemp, J. C.; Swedlund, J. B.; Landstreet, J. D.; Angel, J. R. P. (1970). "Discovery of circularly polarized light from a white dwarf".The Astrophysical Journal Letters.161:L77–L79.Bibcode:1970ApJ...161L..77K.doi:10.1086/180574.
2004PhRvL..93o0801M	Mukherjee, M.; Kellerbauer, A.; Beck, D.; et al. (2004)."The Mass of22Mg "(PDF).Physical Review Letters.93(15): 150801.Bibcode:2004PhRvL..93o0801M.doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.150801.PMID15524861.

See also

• Digital object identifier