1 thought on “Walking away from the American Chemical Society”

1. Unsustainable

   From a blog by Jenica Rogers:  Walking away from the American Chemical Society (http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=1765) 

    

   "SUNY Potsdam will not be subscribing to an American Chemical Society online journal package for 2013. We will instead be using a combination of the Royal Society of Chemistry content, ACS single title subscriptions, the ACS backfile, and ScienceDirect from Elsevier** to meet our chemical information needs. We’re doing this because the ACS pricing model is unsustainable for our institution and we were unable to find common ground with the sales team from the ACS. Instead, we explored other options and exercised them. You could do the same if you find yourself in a position similar to ours as ACS standardizes their pricing, and maybe together we can make enough choices to make our voices heard in meaningful ways."

    

   She indicates that SUNY Potsdam is not the only one doing this, but that they are the first one to do so very publicly.  This story was picked up by Genome Web daily, so it is getting some traction.  They also appear to be one of the first to publicize their alternative, which was arrived at in discussion with the chemistry faculty, many of whom are members of the ACS.  Funny that an American University is going to subscribe to the Royal Society of Chemistry, rather than their own.  

    

   Interesting tidbit later in the post:  "Our Information Literacy librarians have also begun working with Chemistry faculty to integrate “how to do chemical research without university resources to support you” into some of our information literacy sessions for the department.  Teaching this kind of broader information skillset strikes me as just the kind of IL skills we want our students to have as they move into jobs outside of higher education, and I’m grateful this is one side effect of the discussion."

    

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