A Key to the Bibliographies
The bibliographies and resource lists (generally called the bibliographies) of the Glennan Memorial Library at NASA Headquarters are primarily designed to help NASA Headquarters personnel, but they are written in such a manner that they can be useful to people from all walks of life. They are brief overviews of the Glennan Memorial Library's holdings on a specific subject, along with relevant NASA policies, interesting and illustrative articles and reports, e-books, NASA's online training service, and websites. The library's intent is that a bibliography fits on two double-sided sheets of 8½ × 11 sheets of printer paper. This key will allow you to get the best results from these online resources, no matter where you are.
From the top, the typical bibliography has the following divisions:
- Title and introduction: The introduction is no more than a few paragraphs, at most. It sets up what the bibliography will cover, and provide links to related bibliographies. For instance, the introduction to Non-Optical Astronomy provides links to Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes, Astrobiology, and Launch Schedules and Mission Chronologies. Other resources, such as our news alerts, which are available to NASA Headquarters personnel, are sometimes mentioned.
- NASA Policies: Because NASA policies change names over time, the library does not provide direct links to them, but to the NASA Online Directives Information System, where readers can peruse them at their leisure. Occasionally, we will also point readers to the website of the NASA Technical Standards Program, where people can peruse NASA Developed Standards at their leisure.
- Books: The Glennan Memorial Library's policy is to only include books it holds in these bibliographies, as their primary audience is our coworkers at NASA Headquarters. We include ISBNs to make it easy for people to order these books from their preferred bookseller.
- E-books: The e-books are drawn from from the National Academies Press and the Books 24 × 7 service in SATERN. Because the Glennan Memorial Library cannot be certain that a link at either site would remain the same for any length of time, the reader is directed to visit the main sites of both online libraries.
- Articles and Reports: When an article is only available as a hardcopy, it is the Glennan Memorial Library's policy is to only include articles it holds in these bibliographies, as their primary audience is our coworkers at NASA Headquarters. However, the library is willing to scour the Internet for interesting technical reports and scholarly papers from sources outside NASA. In general, though, several databases of free federally produced technical papers are the sources of most of the papers cited here:
- Websites: The websites are a mix of sites within the NASA "constellation " of websites and external sites, often trade groups or other organizations who are deeply involved in promoting the topic. The Glennan Memorial Library is not responsible for the content of these websites, nor does the link represent an endorsement of any commercial service or product.
The Glennan Memorial Library welcomes any suggestions about these websites.
Last Updated: Oct. 2012