Arceli was created in recognition that the Internet allows astronomers to publish useful material outside of traditional journals but does not yet provide an effective mechanism for these communications to be archived, indexed and cited. Arceli acts as a facilitator for archiving communications on behalf of authors and providing a structure that the NASA/SAO Astrophysics Data Service (ADS) can index. Arceli is envisioned as an archive of alt-publications relevant to the professional astronomy community, including tutorials and how-tos, editorials and commentary, and research blogging.
Arceli uses the PressForward plugin to facilitate the curation of materials that are then submitted to Zenodo, an online repository, where it can be assigned a DOI and be indexed by the ADS. By using these tools, Arceli will preserve the informal communications many astronomers rely upon and make them discoverable and citable.