Telescope Bibliographies: an Essential Component of Archival Data Management and Operations

Assessing the impact of astronomical facilities rests upon an evaluation of the scientific discoveries which their data have enabled. Telescope bibliographies, which link data products with the literature, provide a way to use bibliometrics as an impact measure for the underlying observations. In this paper we argue that the creation and maintenance of telescope bibliographies should be considered an integral part of an observatory’s operations. We review the existing tools, services, and workflows which support these curation activities, giving an estimate of the effort and expertise required to maintain an archive-based telescope bibliography.