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I refuse to be a member of the ACM for this very reason---I don't think people should be expected to pay a few hundred bucks a year to access scientific papers.

by alextp 16y ago

I refuse to be a member of the ACM for this very reason---I don't think people should be expected to pay a few hundred bucks a year to access scientific papers. I think the ACM does more to obstruct progress in CS than to advance it, in general, due to policies like this. When I had a free student membership due to participating in a programming contest I found out that I couldn't read almost any paper I wanted without also subscribing to some SIG. Some of my professors have also expressed frustration when trying to dowload papers from ACML DL even though they've been members for decades.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
I don't think people should be expected to pay a few hundred bucks a year to access scientific papers Well, people can go to libraries, of course. But what kind of a business model do you recommend for the ACM, if you don't approve of the one they've got? When I had a free student membership due to participating in a programming contest I found out that I couldn't read almost any paper I wanted without also subscribing to some SIG. Some of my professors have also expressed frustration when trying to dowload papers from ACML DL even though they've been members for decades. Bizarre. I've been a member for over a decade myself, and never had a problem. I just pay for the "Digital Library" subscription ($99, if I remember correctly) and the world's my oyster.
- alextp 16y ago
  I'm not sure I agree that they have a right to exist, hence to have a business model. A good inspiration (on a smaller scale) can be the ACL and the recent open access journals (JMLR, JAIR, etc), that are mainly university-sponsored or university-consorcium-sponsored, have very low operation costs (not having to send all that spam and publish empty magazines like communications was for a long time certainly helps), and volunteer-run (which is not a problem in academia if you attach some prestige to running things). Maybe a subscription model that gives discounts to events for those who pay for the annual membership, with something like discounted book deals and informational emails sent periodically.

by alextp 16y ago

michael_dorfman 16y ago

I don't think people should be expected to pay a few hundred bucks a year to access scientific papers Well, people can go to libraries, of course. But what kind of a business model do you recommend for the ACM, if you don't approve of the one they've got? When I had a free student membership due to participating in a programming contest I found out that I couldn't read almost any paper I wanted without also subscribing to some SIG. Some of my professors have also expressed frustration when trying to dowload papers from ACML DL even though they've been members for decades. Bizarre. I've been a member for over a decade myself, and never had a problem. I just pay for the "Digital Library" subscription ($99, if I remember correctly) and the world's my oyster.

alextp 16y ago
I'm not sure I agree that they have a right to exist, hence to have a business model. A good inspiration (on a smaller scale) can be the ACL and the recent open access journals (JMLR, JAIR, etc), that are mainly university-sponsored or university-consorcium-sponsored, have very low operation costs (not having to send all that spam and publish empty magazines like communications was for a long time certainly helps), and volunteer-run (which is not a problem in academia if you attach some prestige to running things). Maybe a subscription model that gives discounts to events for those who pay for the annual membership, with something like discounted book deals and informational emails sent periodically.