Toward Sustainable Access: Where Are We Now? | May 2018 | Communications of the ACM | Association for Computing Machinery

"ACM's publications program is a core part of fulfilling its mission to advance computing as a science and a profession. ACM's conference proceedings, journals, books, magazines, and newsletters comprise an essential component of ACM's identity as well as service to members and the profession. We are proud of the preeminence of the ACM Digital Library and its suite of services that provide access to these publications, ensure their preservation, and is also a repository for a growing breadth of related artifacts including video, code, and datasets. Selling access to ACM's publications, primarily through institutional subscriptions to the DL, pays for the direct costs of running ACM's publishing program, provides funds for SIG-specific initiatives, and supports the many good works of ACM, including its curriculum and education efforts, public policy initiatives, and broad support of diversity efforts worldwide. For decades, ACM has carefully balanced sustainability of the publishing program with providing authors the opportunity to disseminate their work widely. Examples include longstanding author rights to post their papers through personal or institutional websites, reuse in future publications, and of course to share copies with anyone who might wish to read them...."