So, some disclaimers: I sit on the ACM's Professions Board, and am a member of the CACM Editorial Board, where I sit on the board for the Practice section of CACM, also known as ACM Queue. That said, I speak only for myself here, not for ACM or the Professions Board or Queue Board.
Disclaimers dispensed with, let me say that I personally sympathize with the complaints, especially with respect to the practitioner. The Digital Library (DL) is, in a word, overpriced with respect to the practitioner, and I believe that the ACM can both increase its membership base and better (and more broadly) monetize the DL by using it as more of a loss-leader with the practitioner. The good news is that the ACM is quite receptive to this at its highest levels, and I believe that the chances for reform (at least with respect to the practitioner) are very good.
And indeed, this is the good news about ACM more broadly: the organization wants to change, especially with respect to the practitioner. One would be right to question this, but trust that I came to this conclusion only reluctantly and in the presence of overwhelming evidence -- a path that I outlined here:
I would repeat here my plea from that blog entry: the ACM has given practitioners a new voice, but we must engage with the ACM to use it. We must move beyond merely "considering the ACM harmful" and point to new models that work for our profession and its society. In short, the ACM is willing to follow, but we practitioners must light the way!
I was an ACM student member. I joined because of the clunkiness of accessing the DL through my university.
Well I was tricked. I don't care about the social stuff. I don't care about the conferences. All I wanted was access to the DL, your single most useful asset.
I didn't get that because it's not bundled. My fault for not reading the fine print. And the ACM's fault for treating one of the two core bodies of comp. sci. literature as a luxury item.
My university's chapter of ACM just puts on silly social events and sponsors talks that are high on marketing and low on tech. Anyone who really cares about the field has given up trying to deal with them and just made their own clubs.
I realize that this is a problem with the local chapter more than ACM as a whole, but the message they've repeatedly given to me is that ACM has nothing of value to offer me.
Were it only that simple! No, "engaging with the ACM" means becoming involved via either local chapters or with the national organization -- and it starts with becoming a member. If you're curious about other ways to get involved, I'm happy to offer ideas -- I can be reached at my HN user name at (naturally) acm.org.
Disclaimers dispensed with, let me say that I personally sympathize with the complaints, especially with respect to the practitioner. The Digital Library (DL) is, in a word, overpriced with respect to the practitioner, and I believe that the ACM can both increase its membership base and better (and more broadly) monetize the DL by using it as more of a loss-leader with the practitioner. The good news is that the ACM is quite receptive to this at its highest levels, and I believe that the chances for reform (at least with respect to the practitioner) are very good.
And indeed, this is the good news about ACM more broadly: the organization wants to change, especially with respect to the practitioner. One would be right to question this, but trust that I came to this conclusion only reluctantly and in the presence of overwhelming evidence -- a path that I outlined here:
http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2009/05/15/queue-cacm-and-the-re...
I would repeat here my plea from that blog entry: the ACM has given practitioners a new voice, but we must engage with the ACM to use it. We must move beyond merely "considering the ACM harmful" and point to new models that work for our profession and its society. In short, the ACM is willing to follow, but we practitioners must light the way!