DOI: 10.1145/1536616.1536618
Scott E. Delman
Responding to the Blogosphere
In the July issue of Communications, Moshe
Vardi addressed ACM’s access model in his
Editor’s Letter entitled “Open, Closed, or
Clopen Access?” (p. 5). The letter has since

been picked up in the blogosphere by

John Dupuis, the esteemed Science &

Engineering Librarian from York Uni-

versity in Toronto, on his blog Confes-

sions of a Science Librarian (http://sci-

enceblogs.com/confessions). Dupuis

raised some interesting questions that

I believe deserve response, especially

since as a scholarly publisher of nearly

two decades the topics of open access

(OA) and association publishing are

particularly near and dear to my heart.

It is worth repeating a sentiment

that Dupuis offered in his blog that

ACM is “on the side of the angels,” not

just because I really like the sound of

this, but because the sentiment under-

scores an important truth related to

both OA and association publishing,

the truth that association publishers

are in effect all OA publishers. In the

hotly debated realm of OA, sides have

been drawn and too often the issues

and players are portrayed as black and

white, right or wrong, good and evil.

These dichotomies are easy to pack-

age and sell to those who are buying,

but all too often they are inaccurate.

So is the case with the now famous

color-coded guide to OA publish-

ers. This system places publishers in

boxes, but fails to address the reality

that association publishers (regard-

less of their color-coded status) serve

as field-wide gatekeepers of informa-

tion and knowledge without a profit

motive to drive their decision making.

Associations like ACM are their mem-

bership, and as a result, are simply an

extension of the intentions and will of

the scientific communities they serve.

Much like the notion of an institution-

al repository at a more targeted level,

associations provide a single point of

entry for members to access the his-

torical and ongoing record of scholar-

ship for their entire field (if executed

well, that is).

The fact that ACM charges both for

access to the published information

in its Digital Library and also extends

the courtesy of “Green OA” to its au-

thors is actually less important to me

(while both are important aspects of

what we do) than the fact that ACM

and many other association publish-

In my opinion,
the question should
not be how will
society publishers
justify their existence
in the future,
but rather how
can they be better
at marketing
themselves and
promoting the
valuable work that
they continue to do.

ers serve as well-intentioned care-

takers of the scholarly record. I have

spent too many hours trying to identi-

fy the “most up-to-date version” of an

author’s article on his or her Web site

or digging through the various related

institutional repositories to identify a

specific version of an article to believe

that any other system at the present

time offers the advantages of publish-

ing with learned societies.

When I say that all association pub-

lishers are essentially OA publishers,

I mean this from the perspective that

associations and their corresponding

communities are one and the same.

In my opinion, the question should

not be how will society publishers

justify their existence in the future,

but rather how can they be better at

marketing themselves and promoting

the valuable work that they continue

to do. Publishing will always have a

cost, whether it relates to print pub-

lications or publishing information

online. In most well-researched ar-

ticles I’ve read on OA, all parties gen-

erally tend to agree on this. The real

question is where is this money best

spent and how. As a longtime publish-

er who has worked for both for-profit

and a leading association publisher,

I feel strongly that this is where any

debate should be focused, and I am

confident that the most valuable and

well-run professional society pub-

lishers will in the long run continue

to prove their worth to the scientific

community at large.

 

Scott E. Delman, PuBlIshER