ACS Alters Online Journal Pricing

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

The American Chemical Society's Publications Division has announced that it is revising its digital journal subscription policies for 2006.

At present, ACS sells annual subscriptions for two types of online access: a "current" subscription, which includes the most recent five years of a journal, and the archives, which include older issues. At the beginning of each year, the issues from the earliest year of the subscription are transferred to the archives.

Starting in 2006, a current subscription will provide subscribers with online access to issues dating from 1996 forward. The content of a current subscription will thus grow larger each year.

At the same time, ACS will stop adding material to the digital archives. Renamed the "ACS Legacy Archives," the modified product will include all journal issues published from 1879 through 1995. Libraries will have the option to subscribe on an annual basis or to purchase permanent access to the archives for a one-time payment (with a "nominal" annual fee). ACS will set its 2006 subscription fees by the end of this month.

Andrea Twiss-Brooks, a physical sciences librarian at the University of Chicago and a member of ACS's Library Advisory Group, believes librarians will welcome the greater flexibility of the new access plan, particularly the one-time-fee option for the archive.

Sometimes librarians "end up with a chunk of money from some unforeseen source, and we can use it very effectively for these kinds of purchases," she explains. Ongoing subscription fees, on the other hand, "are always subject to whatever the next year's budget is. There have been years where we have done major serial cancellations in order to balance the budget."

Twiss-Brooks thinks that the nominal annual fee for access to the archives is "perfectly acceptable. We know from our own operations that there are ongoing costs involved in any kind of technology. We don't see investments in technology as something that you pay for once and then you can coast."