American Chemical Society Announces New ACS AuthorChoice Open Acc ess Option

[Adam Chesler <a_chesler@acs.org>]

American Chemical Society Announces New ACS AuthorChoice Open 
Access Option

The American Chemical Society's Publications Division is pleased 
to announce an important new publishing option in support of the 
Society's journal authors who wish or need to sponsor open access 
to their published research articles.  The ACS AuthorChoice 
option establishes a fee-based mechanism for individual authors 
or their research funding agencies to sponsor the open 
availability of their articles on the web at the time of online 
publication. Under this new policy, to be implemented later this 
Fall, the ACS as copyright holder will enable unrestricted web 
access to a contributing author's publication from the Society's 
web site, in exchange for a fixed payment from the sponsoring 
author.  ACS AuthorChoice will also enable such authors to post 
electronic copies of published articles on their own personal web 
sites and institutional repositories for non-commercial scholarly 
purposes.

The base fee for the ACS AuthorChoice option will be set at 
$3,000 during 2006-2007, with significant discounts applied for 
contributing authors who are members of the American Chemical 
Society and/or who are affiliated with an ACS subscribing 
institution.  The fee structure will be as follows:

$3,000:  Base Fee (authors who are neither ACS members nor 
affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)

$2,000:  Affiliated Subscriber (non-ACS members affiliated with 
an ACS subscribing institution)

$1,500:  ACS Member (ACS members not affiliated with an ACS 
subscribing institution)

$1,000:  ACS Member and Affiliated Subscriber (ACS members 
affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)

The ACS AuthorChoice option will be extended to authors only 
after peer-review and editorial acceptance of their articles for 
publication, so as to ensure complete separation between 
scientific editorial decision-making and economic considerations. 
Upon an author's payment to sponsor the ACS AuthorChoice option, 
the ACS will make the article freely available upon web 
publication.

The ACS AuthorChoice option complements the ACS Articles on 
Request policy, whereby the Society currently provides (free of 
charge) to all contributing authors a unique URL within the ACS 
web site, that they may e-mail to colleagues or post on external 
websites.  Those author-directed links are designed to facilitate 
distribution of an author's published work to interested 
colleagues.  The ACS Articles on Request policy now allows 50 
limited downloads within the first year, and unlimited access via 
the same author-directed links 12 months after publication.  At a 
paying author's choosing, the ACS AuthorChoice option will 
sponsor immediate open access to an article as soon as it is 
published on the ACS web site.

Brian Crawford, Senior Vice President within the ACS Publications 
Division, said, "The new ACS AuthorChoice option underscores the 
American Chemical Society's willingness to experiment with 
innovative models to broaden access to highly-valued 
peer-reviewed research in chemistry, while adhering to the 
highest standards of editorial integrity, quality, and service in 
support of the research activities of the international 
scientific community.  We are pleased that our editors, authors, 
readers, and library customers support the Society's growing 
array of publishing activities designed to broaden access and 
enhance the scholarly communication process worldwide."

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, 
chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary 
membership of more than 158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. 
The Society publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, 
convenes major research conferences and provides educational, 
science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices 
are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.  The ACS 
Publications Division currently publishes 35 leading 
peer-reviewed journals in the chemical and related sciences, 
including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, as well 
as Chemical & Engineering News, the Society's weekly news 
magazine.

Media Contact:
Michael Bernstein
ACS Communications
(202) 872-4400
m_bernstein@acs.org

Customer Contact:
Adam Chesler
ACS Customer Relations
(202) 872-6183
a_chesler@acs.org