ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) offers libraries several
choices for subscribing to their journals
(http://www.acm.org/membership/library/library-toc).  The most
cost-effective version for my library is the a la carte option (we are
only interested in a handful of ACM journals).  More information about
the a la carte options for libraries is available at
http://www.acm.org/membership/membership/library/alacarte.  The
electronic only subscription (for libraries) indicates that it is
available via username/password for a single user.  I interpret this
subscription as being for a single concurrent user, an interpretation
that the customer service representatives agreed with.

EBSCOhost EJS, our e-journal management platform, has pulled access to
our ACM journals (we purchase licenses to about 5 a la carte titles),
because no matter what the CSR at ACM tells me, ACM's official policy is
that our institutional username/password can literally only be used by
one person and cannot be shared.

I think it is rather ridiculous for a publisher to sell a license to an
institutional entity with a formal policy dictating that only one person
can access the content.  I would like to see this policy changed.

Has anyone else questioned this policy?  Does anyone have any ideas on
the best way to encourage ACM to change this policy?  I'm thinking that
if librarians can get Time, Inc. to send us SI's swimsuit issue, we
should be able to get ACM to change the wording of their subscription
policies.

Thanks to all for reading,

Jenifer Holman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jenifer Holman
Acquisitions Librarian
Murphy Library
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
1631 Pine St.
La Crosse, WI 54601

phone: 608-785-8395
fax: 608-785-8639
email: holman.jeni@uwlax.edu
http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/
<http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/>