THE IDL ASTRONOMY USER'S LIBRARY (March 2008)The IDL Astronomy Users Library is a central repository for general purpose astronomy procedures written in IDL.    The library currently contains500+ procedures including general FITS I/O, interfaces with STSDAS and IRAF,astronomical utilities, and photometry and spectral analysis procedures.  The library is not meant to be an integrated package, but rather is acollection of procedures  from which users can pick and choose (and possiblymodify) for their own use. Submitted procedures are given a cursory testing,but are basically stored in the library as submitted.     The IDLAstronomy User's Library was funded through November 2000 under the NASA Astrophysics Data program.The homepage for the IDL Astronomy Library is  http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov.There is no longer any FTP access and downloads must be performed from the Webor using WGET.     The default version of the Library requires IDL V5.6,although earlier frozen versions are available in the old/ directory.The success of the IDL Astronomy User's Library depends upon thewillingness of users to give as well as take.   Submission of relevantprocedures is strongly encouraged.  Equally important is the notification (or correction) of programming bugs or documentation errors.I have discontinued the previous mailing list because notices were soinfrequent.  I will post news about major updates to the comp.lang.idl-pvwave newsgroup.Questions about the IDL Astronomy Library can be addressed to Wayne Landsman     Wayne.Landsman@nasa.gov                   (301)-286-3625The directory contains the following files  aaareadme.txt - this file  astron.tar.gz - a gzip'ed Unix tar file containing all Library procedures         text files, and data files.      astron.dir.tar.gz - This file is an alternative to astron.tar.gz.   It         contains the same files as astron.tar.gz but maintains the library        procedures in their respective sub-directories.  astron.zip - A .zip version of the Astronomy Library, but with X-windows-only        procedures (e.g. curs.pro) removed  contents.txt - an ASCII file giving one-line descriptions of all        500+ procedures currently in the Library.   This listing is also         available at http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/contents.html  guidelines.txt - Suggested programming guidelines for Astronomy library        procedures.  news.txt - an ASCII file listing all additions or changes to the Library         in the past 6 months in reverse chronological order.  This file         should be checked periodically as new and modified procedures are added        to the Library.   Also availabile as an HTML file at         http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/news.htmlThe following subdirectories are available  text - contains a collection of ASCII and LaTex files concerning various             categories of IDL procedures.  data - contains data files used by a couple of Library procedures.   *Due to         their size, the files testpo.405 and JPLEPH.405 are not included in         the .tar and.zip files.    This environment variable ASTRO_DATA should         point to this directory.    obsolete - repository for procedures removed from the Library because their          use has diminished or their functionality has been replaced by other         procedures.  pro  - Contains all the Library procedures as individual ASCII files.            These procedures are placed in subdirectories according to their            category, e.g. pro/fits, pro/sdas, pro/idlphot  old - Contains tar files of frozen versions of the IDL Astronomy Library         compatible with IDL versions 4.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5.  v60 - A beta test directory of procedures upgraded to take advantage of new            features  introduced in IDL V6.0.    v61 - A beta test directory of procedures using new features in IDL V6.1  v64 - A beta test directory of procedures using new features in IDL V6.4  zdbase - Contains compressed binary tar files of popular astronomical           catalogs formatted as IDL databases.   See the file           zdbase/aaareadme.txt for more info.   contrib - contains self-contained IDL astronomy-related packages that           are *not* part of the standard astronomy library distribution.           See contrib/aaareadme.txt for more info.