Creating a living directory of researchers using ORCID and ADS

ORCID IDs are now widely used in Astrophysics and are routinely used by authors to flag themselves in published works. Searches of the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) by ORCID ID lead to precise publication lists for an author, free of the ambiguity caused by common surnames, for example. This opens the door to creating an unbiased, comprehensive directory of authors in a specific subject area.

In this presentation I describe how I created such a directory for my own research area (Solar Physics) using ORCID IDs and publication data from ADS. I present statistics such as the number of researchers, the average number of papers they write per year, and the median number of citations these papers receive. I also have demographic information such as the number of countries in which Solar Physicists can be found, and which institutes have the largest numbers of Solar Physicists.

The directory is generated through software procedures and can be updated automatically on a regular basis. I suggest how it can be extended to other fields of Astrophysics.