The Diamond publications database

What exactly is the publications database?

The database is a repository of all the journal articles, conference papers, PhD theses and book chapters related to this facility. It is more than a simple index of information. The database contains the key measures of Diamond’s success. Scientific outputs generated by the organisation provide our stakeholders and government authorities with evidence for the scientific excellence of our community. Not only does this build up the case for ongoing support for the facility, but it also gives users an evidence base for future beamtime applications.

What are the current key projects?

Over the last few months we’ve looked at ways of improving the retrieval and submission of relevant articles into the database. This makes it easier for scientists to provide us with information, and easier for us when we’re trying to extract key information about who’s published what and when.

We're also working on improving the data integrity. Data is at the centre of tracking and evaluation. We need to know what we’re producing and we must be able to demonstrate those key facts to others. We're working to create high standards of data which we can use to both track and highlight the excellent quality of research being produced through Diamond.

We anticipate a lot of our searches, but ultimately nothing replaces an efficient and willing user sharing their publication with us.

Scientists are often told to acknowledge Diamond and other facilities in their publications – why is this so important?

Visibility. Having publications in the database is important for Diamond because it allows us to demonstrate the level of support we’re providing to our users. But it’s also important to the scientists themselves. Diamond works with a variety of funding agencies and it’s the publications database we turn to when we want to highlight important research taking place here. When you enter your publication into the database, you’re helping to improve the visibility of your work to those who fund research – and that benefits everyone.

What can users do to help?

It is important to have the support of the Diamond scientists and user community to help ensure the work they publish is recognised on our database. I work with the database software developers to improve usability and work on new features, so we're always keen to hear feedback and suggestions from our users.

But the best ways users can help is by always acknowledging the support Diamond has provided and regularly uploading their papers to the database.

If users get in touch with us before the publication date then our PR team can help by notifying the press (contact [email protected]).

We also often highlight research in features for the public or science community. It’s all about keeping in touch – this allows us to maximise the exposure of published research where possible.

All of this starts with the publications database. It really is at the heart of everything we do here. With all the work we're doing on usability, we hope that our publications database will soon become the benchmark for other synchrotron repositories to look up to and follow.

For general queries about the publications database, contact us at: [email protected]