At launch, the ACM Digital Library
contained the full text of all articles
published by ACM from 1991 forward,
and the metadata for articles published
back to 1985.
ACM’s Digital Library proved a suc-
cess from the outset. The decision to
make the metadata for ACM’s digital
collection freely available (with sub-
scriptions only required for download-
ing full text) allowed the computing
community worldwide to use and ben-
efit from the Digital Library regardless
of their relationship with ACM. That
decision, combined with extremely af-
fordable pricing for individuals and
institutions to access the full text of
ACM articles, set the stage for early,
enthusiastic engagement of the Digital
Library.
Since its launch, ACM has main-
tained an ongoing commitment in
time, talent, and investment to en-
sure the Digital Library continues to
flourish and fulfill the needs of the
community. Within a year of its debut
(and earlier than other professional
societies), ACM resolved to capture
and host everything the organization
had ever published. We also decided
to raise the visibility and importance
of The Guide to Computing Literature,
ACM’s bibliographic database of the
computing citations from a vast array
of global publishers. And we elected
to extract references from all publi-
cations (electronic and scanned) and
treat them as first-class metadata.
These decisions were at the core of a
major reimplementation of the Digital
Library released in 2001. That release
included reference linking across all
ACM publications, citation counts for
ACM articles, and a significantly en-
hanced Guide.
The Digital Library, and the role
it plays within the computing com-
munity, are top priorities for ACM.
Throughout the last decade we have
made significant investments in its
content, features, performance, and
worldwide reach. As a result, the Digi-
tal Library is now available at over
2,500 institutions around the globe;
26,000 professional members and
14,000 student members hold indi-
vidual subscriptions. There are over
2.5 million unique visits per month,
one million articles downloaded each
month, and 75,000 Digital Library
searches conducted each day.
ACM will continue investing in the
Digital Library. New search technolo-
gy recently integrated has dramatical-
ly enhanced Digital Library searches
and will enable a much richer, guided
navigation experience of ACM (and
other publishers’) content. A major
effort has been completed to nor-
malize author and institution names
so the community can easily and ac-
curately find the published work of
specific authors and institutions.
New bibliometrics are now associated
with each article and aggregated for
authors (and soon institutions). The
new ACM Author Page shows the col-
lected works of an author, institution-
al affiliations, as well as individual
and aggregate citation and download
counts. With these new features, us-
ers can easily see not only who is pub-
lishing, but which articles are actually
being downloaded (and presumably
read).
The Digital Library has become
ACM’s most significant product and
service. More than anything else, the
Digital Library reflects the dimensions,
the brand, the quality—the essence—
of ACM. The success of the Digital Li-
brary, however, doesn’t stop here. ACM
will continue to invest resources and
talent to ensure its Digital Library stays
at the leading edge, is accessible and
affordable to everyone, and remains
the premier digital repository for the
computing community.
References:
Archives