ACM To Make Its Entire Digital Library Open Access Starting January 2026 (acm.org) 22
The Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest society of computing professionals, announced that all publications and related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library will become freely available to everyone starting January 2026. Authors will retain full copyright to their published work under the new arrangement, and ACM has committed to defending those works against copyright and integrity-related violations.
The transition follows what ACM described as extensive dialogue with authors, Special Interest Group leaders, editorial boards, libraries, and research institutions globally. Students, educators, and researchers at institutions of all sizes -- from well-resourced universities to emerging research communities -- will gain unrestricted access to the full catalog of ACM-published work. The Digital Library houses decades of computing research across journals, magazines, conference proceedings, and books.
The transition follows what ACM described as extensive dialogue with authors, Special Interest Group leaders, editorial boards, libraries, and research institutions globally. Students, educators, and researchers at institutions of all sizes -- from well-resourced universities to emerging research communities -- will gain unrestricted access to the full catalog of ACM-published work. The Digital Library houses decades of computing research across journals, magazines, conference proceedings, and books.
Re:well sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully others follow suit with this. The majority of the research published in these journals or conferences is funded by our tax dollars. All of that content already belongs to us and the idea that access to it requires a multi-hundred dollar subscription is ludicrous.
I think that is will only be a net positive. Open source software works well by allowing more eyeballs to spot and fix problems. The same principles apply to science as well and giving more people access to the results will improve the quality of the field as a whole when problems can be identified by a larger group of people.
Re: (Score:2)
The ACM needs a viable business model (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how this is sustainable, and I was a dues-paying member of the IEEE Computer Society for about 20 years and of the ACM for about 10 years. I even attended meetings and donated quite a bit of time to the CS. Minor writing and enough refereeing to become a "senior referee" at the end. I think they are doing some important stuff, but there are costs... And eventually I stopped paying dues. (But now I'm also remembering a database conference that may have been paid for by my employer.)
By the way, I used to read the magazines I received cover to cover. That time actually became a significant negative factor. Lots of good stuff, but too much time required. On that front I think the main effect of paperless publishing will be to significantly reduce the incentive to read all of an entire issue... Why not just ask an AI to summarize the parts that are most relevant to my work?
So if you're going to push me for an overall assessment, I think it's a net negative and will make the ACM less relevant. Perhaps even imperil it's survival.
But I also have a solution approach to ignore: What if the ACM supported books with special webpages to address the time problem? Each computer-related book would have some QR codes pointing to the errata, a bibliography, a searchable and dynamic index, and even forward links to later work on related topics. Kind of a post-publishing future bibliography? In this fantasy, at least the publishers would be providing some funding to sustain the relevance of the books they are selling.
Re: (Score:2)
There was an article in communication onf the ACM this year about how their model was sustainable.
Basically, their income come is going to shift to publication fees and conference registrations. There is little reason to think it is not sustainable.
I don't think that member subscription was a major source of their income.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting points. I am also an ACM/IEEE/... member (current chair of SF Bay ACM).
I think a potential benefit to being open is providing room for mentors. As you mention, time takes time, a more curated experience to the wealth of knowledge I believe could come forward. I would happily pay for the "experts" in the field to provide a shortened and curated path through the material. More than just "read a,b, and d" but even associate study groups, etc. The new model they are taken will make this service even
Re: (Score:2)
Seems we are mostly in concurrence, but several confusing points in your comment.
I think the "time takes time" part was intended as something like "reading takes time" or "active professional society membership consumes time". Seems to be the kind of mistake I make too often these years, where my fingers apparently run off with a repeated word as I'm thinking about something else a few words farther on.
The part about divergent learning paths could be related to something I wrote about online courses, but I'
Well done. Time for copyright reform. (Score:3, Insightful)
Newspapers and publishers should make their money from micro-payments for access to new IP, their old IP should quickly lose copyright and become free for everyone.
Copyright is a *privilege* we give to *creators* to encourage *creation*, not an endless money source for parasites to live off others' old creations.
Re: (Score:2)
The law does not agree with you. And most of the people who understand it think you're ridiculous.
Good news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Field Day for AI (Score:4, Interesting)
Opening of this is a treasure trove for the AI engines to feed on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Normal people: Yay, accessible science! My university no longer needs to pay ransom so I can do my research ...
Slashdot: Let's see how we can shoehorn AI into the topic
Re: (Score:2)
Opening of this is a treasure trove for the AI engines to feed on.
I doubt if the ACM will simply permit that one. They will likely have Open Access limited so have to register for a free open access account.
The verbiage implies you will be able to read ACM Journals, Proceedings, and Magazines.
It does not clearly state that you will be allowed full access to download PDF/text in an unlimited manner.
Meanwhile their website already has a discussion about Free vs Premium features. Also "Bulk citation export"
Finally! (Score:3)
This is so overdue.
I once wrote a paper on Mellon Optical Memory, a computer memory system from the 1950s which was never used in production. The only good article on it was in ACM. They charged $24USD for a PDF of the article that was a couple pages long.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Any relevant ACM articles in my day were passed hand to hand, due to ACM's greediness. And, there weren't many, mainly just the oldest ones before IEEE and others got into the game.
Why is original research and thought so devalued? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am entering the "get off my lawn" stage in life and being ordered off the stage by many younger folks, so take some of what I say with that in mind.
Through my entire career the ACM and Computer Society are where I have gone to be amazed, challenged and forced to re-assess what I know. While 70% of research is crap, agreed, 30% is freaking brilliant, and can leave you stunned and excited considering the possibilities.
It really saddens me to see the way this kind of open ended research being discounted off hand as irrelevant and dated. It feels to me that we have become so enamored with echo chambers that original thought and ideas have become "irrelevant". AI is fantastic at taking what has happened before and repeating it. I find it taking away so much of the mindless grind that it is becoming truly liberating. I believe that that appropriate use of AI frees us up to do so much more of this kind of original thinking.
For folks in the IT industry, I would humbly request everyone to take advantage of the open access to these documents and find at least one idea that challenges you each week. It can only help :-).
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much want to echo everything you wrote. Back in the early 90s, I wrote an application for ACM which stored their articles in an RDBMS using an SGML format. The front end was a c/Motif interface which ACM used to assemble their journals for typesetting. Coming into the IT world from another discipline (economics), I have found their publications to be an invaluable learning resource when I have needed to delve deep into an area I was not familiar with. Also great fun to get lost in ACM article rabbit
Coming from a University worker... (Score:2)
This is an invaluable resource, and makes me very happy. I don't have any issues accessing the ACM DL, both because I am an ACM member (Senior Member, hah!) and because my university pays for our access, and I basically don't notice the paywalls when working from my office (and from home, a ssh tunnel works wonders ;-) ). I wouldn't have managed to graduate from Masters and PhD without them. But not everybody has the facilities I have being staff of a very big university. This (long-planned, slowly implemen