INSPIRE took over SPIRES frontend services already, SPIRES backend, however, is still running and in partial use in order to get content into INSPIRE as not all of INSPIRE’s backend tools have reached production level yet. While all auxiliary databases except HepNames are already maintained exclusively on INSPIRE, a lot of information for HEP is still generated on SPIRES’ side and updates are sent to INSPIRE several times a day. Bibtex keys are an example and it takes them several hours after the arXiv harvesting to show up on INSPIRE. Citation curation, however, is done on INSPIRE. Furthermore, the theses collection is maintained already completely on INSPIRE and long author lists using author.xml files such as those of the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS are only handled on INSPIRE. Juggling two very different systems does introduce more delays than we would like, but no information is lost and it just might sometimes take a bit longer to appear in this transition phase. If we encounter this, we try to catch up on the information but we might miss some records. So whenever you as a user come across a record which you think is missing important information, we highly appreciate it if you let us know at feedback@inspirehep.net. We’ll not only be able to fix the record, but you’ll be helping us diagnosing glitches in this temporary procedure. We expect to be gradually able to move more and more backend processes to INSPIRE in the next few months, so those inconveniences will disappear.
It started in the late 1960’s as a database of particle physics literature, it went online as the first website in North America in 1991, on Thursday 26th April 2012, SPIRES frontend will be shut off. After decades of being the first address for literature search and connected services, SPIRES will go offline and the baton of providing tools for researchers in HEP will be entirely passed on to INSPIRE.
INSPIRE provides even more innovations based on the experience of SPIRES in managing the discipline’s information resources and in connecting and communicating successfully with the community. Besides the fact that it is faster than SPIRES, INSPIRE provides searchable fulltexts, complete reference lists for recent papers, much more detailed references and even plots extracted from arXiv articles. In addition, it offers author disambiguation for high-quality author profiles and better search capabilities. Furthermore, users can even improve the database by verifying their publications and correcting references.
The SPIRES backend, though, is still used for record creation and curation as the full workflow is not yet implemented on INSPIRE.
If you should encounter any trouble using INSPIRE or have any questions about our tools and features, don’t hesitate to contact us at feedback@inspirehep.net.
INSPIRE is now out of beta-testing and in full production. SPIRES will soon be shut off and all your searches will need to run through www.inspirehep.net.
Thanks to the feedback from the community and the hard work of the INSPIRE team, we have removed most of the bugs and INSPIRE is now in great working shape for you to use to help your research.
We continue to develop features for INSPIRE and look forward to more of your feedback to help guide us toward the most useful features to build. You can let us know what you need next at feedback@inspirehep.net.
SPIRES, the high-energy physics publications database, will soon be replaced by INSPIRE, a new service that offers many improvements over what users can currently access. On September 17 the SPIRES database will stop being maintained and users will be required to access INSPIRE for up-to-date information.
Among the improvements in INSPIRE are: faster and improved searches, author disambiguation, full-text searches of papers, searchable figure captions, and search of LHC experimental notes.
More information about the transition and the new capabilities of INSPIRE is available at http://www.projecthepinspire.net/ and by following @inspirehep on Twitter.
INSPIRE has built on research of what users most need and want by a team from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, CERN, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. SPIRES is currently maintained by SLAC, DESY, and Fermilab.
SPIRES started operating in 1974 and now receives more than one million searches per month. It has become a key resource for high-energy physicists in finding and understanding the scientific literature.
INSPIRE currently operates in beta mode at www.inspirebeta.net and approximately half of high-energy physicists have tried the new database. As more people use the new service, it is being tweaked to improve its functionality.
All physicists are encouraged to try out the INSPIRES database before SPIRES is no longer supported and provide any feedback they have through the forms on the site or to feedback@inspirebeta.net