Users need easy access to searchable databases of recent literature such as newsletters, technical reports, and papers. As a simple first step, the NSE developers have provided full-text WAIS indices of the University of Tennessee Technical Reports, the Numerical Analysis Digest (an electronic newsletter), and the LAPACK Working Notes. The user may perform a keyword search on any of these databases and have a list of titles returned. This search interface is primitive, however, as it does not allow field-specific searching or choice of result set format. More result set information, such as title, author, and a short abstract, would aid the user in deciding whether an item is relevant without viewing it in its entirety.
Netlib is participating in the BibNet Bibliography Network Project by mirroring the BibNet files from their home site at the University of Utah. BibNet is a public-domain bibliography database in BibTeX format. The BibNet project is intended to allow scientists to provide complete and updated information on their own work, find information about ongoing research of others, and maintain pointers to electronically accessible material. Contributions are currently solicited from the numerical analysis and scientific computing communities. A searchable index of titles and abstracts that includes the BibNet database is also available on the NSE Information Databases page.