Petition: Restore Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library

ipetitions.com

16 points·underscoreF··2 comments

I generally agree with the petition, but one quick note--the "cited by" feature is still actually available in the Basic Edition. But, there is a really bad HCI issue. The pillbox on the right includes "cited by" and it has a note saying that the pillbox is a Premium feature, which makes people think they can't get "cited by" in Basic. But if you are in Basic and scroll down, the Cited By section is still available, and you can click on View All and get all citations even in Basic.

I am a member of the ACM Publications Board, and I have brought the petition to the attention of the Publications and Digital Libraries boards at the ACM. I hope they will make changes.

Background: In recent years, the DL has always provided fully free and open access to features based on bibliometric data and other metadata associated with ACM publications, and the DL has allowed anyone to post comments on publications. ... Author Profile pages collected and published the complete works of individual authors at a single stable URL; many authors treated their ACM DL Author Profile page as a CV, trusting the DL to maintain it in perpetuity and publish it without restriction.

In late December 2025, these previously free and open DL facilities became "Premium Access" features.

Good grief. And here I was thinking ACM had actually done a Good Thing with their move to Open Access. But looking at this, and considering also the hefty publication fees they charge for publishing said Open Access papers, it's hard to see anything positive about ACM right now. It's really making me question if I can justify continuing to maintain an ACM membership TBH.

Here's hoping enough pressure emerges to motivate a change on this.

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