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Policy

More Bang For Your Buck

by Kent J. Voorhees
October 7, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 40

Kent Voorhees, ACS director-at-large
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Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
Kent Voorhees, ACS director-at-large.
Credit: Peter Cutts Photography

Every year you decide whether to continue your membership in the American Chemical Society. We know you have other options for your money, and we are humbled that you and tens of thousands of others continue to maintain membership with the society.

In order to continue to win your loyalty, we find ourselves on a never-ending quest to provide you greater value for your dues dollars.

In the recent past, ACS introduced two important new benefits involving exclusive member access to technical information. One relates to ACS Publications and your opportunity to download up to 25 articles annually. The other involves SciFinder and your ability to conduct up to 25 activities every year. For members in good standing, these benefits are complimentary with your paid membership; the value of these two benefits alone far exceeds the price of your ACS dues.

We are now announcing another important benefit exclusively for ACS members. Since 2009, ACS has recorded and made available online a select number of technical presentations delivered at ACS national meetings. This collection of presentations is known as ACS Presentations on Demand, or ACS POD.

Recently, the ACS Board of Directors voted to make ACS POD a member benefit, meaning for the first 12 months after initial posting, the presentations will be available only to ACS members. This action takes effect on Oct. 16, when the collection of approximately 350 Indianapolis national meeting presentations will be posted. At the same time, members will also have access to the 392 presentations captured during the New Orleans national meeting held in April. After 12 months from the initial posting, the collection of a particular meeting’s POD will be considered open access for six months, meaning anyone in the world can access the content at no charge. To view the presentations at no charge on Oct. 16, please visit http://presentations.acs.org.

For a number of reasons, a large majority of our members cannot attend one of our two annual national meetings. ACS POD provides them with an opportunity to view selected key presentations delivered at our national meetings, at the time and place of their choosing. While no amount of technology can replace the many benefits of physically attending ACS national meetings, ACS POD seeks to share with all ACS members some of the important technical and professional information delivered at our meetings.

Apart from the recent decision to make ACS POD a member benefit, the society is working in other ways to increase the value you get with membership renewal. Later this year, the highly popular ACS Web­inars archive of weekly webinars will be accessible only to members. We recognize that a small percentage of our members are available to participate during the live Thursday ACS Webinars events. This is why we will make selected ACS webinars available online, and on demand, with more being added on a regular basis.

We are grateful for your continued membership in our society and are fully committed to delivering new ways to enhance the value of ACS membership. We know many of our members benefit from ACS finding new and more convenient ways to provide them with important technical and professional information. We pledge to do more in this area. If you have comments or questions about the news I have shared in this column or if you have other ideas about how ACS can help you advance in your area of chemistry, please contact me at kjvacs@comcast.net.

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.

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