Comments on: Condensed Print Format

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:12:15 +0000

I find it a bit hypocritical to talk about saving trees when it’s obviously about saving money… or do you think it’s a coincidence that this move should happen in the middle of the economic crisis?

By: azmanam

azmanam — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:16:34 +0000

The counter argument to that says printers are probably only printing the 2-5 articles they really want to read, instead of the whole journal. Thus even though the number of articles read on paper may not change significantly, the number of articles printed on paper should decrease fairly dramatically.

By: Tree hugger

Tree hugger — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:28:28 +0000

As to the comment about saving trees, it is debatable. I find people print out the journal rather than read it online and they tend to have to print multiple copies. Or they print because the university does not charge for printing and there are more copies printed than there were before, using less efficient technology.

By: Randy Winchester

Randy Winchester — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:24:51 +0000

An important point that I got last week was left out:

“Beginning in 2010, all individual ACS journal subscriptions will be available only as Web Editions: After December 31, 2009, individual print subscriptions will no longer be available. You may renew your current print journal subscription to the electronic Web Edition of the equivalent journal, at a special discounted price extended to ACS members. ”

Why didn’t they include that in the original message?

By: eugene

eugene — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:35:57 +0000

I already print out JACS articles this way. Two pages to fit onto one print page. I think it is one of the things to blame for my worsening eyesight.

I got an electronic book reader for this purpose, but the stupid thing couldn’t embiggen JACS articles correctly without deleting the figures. How hard is it to make software that works just like Adobe PDF reader for those things?

By: Maz

Maz — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:26:07 +0000

“P.S:Ultimately this move will save a Central Park sized chunk of forest per year.”

Wow, that is fantastic. All that from changing the magazine format to a flip book format.

Not only do I get to feel like a five year old while reading science articles, I do it while saving forest? Awesome.

I wonder how much we could save if we changed our textbooks to a similar format?

By: mitch

mitch — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:10:46 +0000

I don’t understand? So I will have to rotate it by 90 degrees and read it like a flip book?

By: Brandon Nordin

Brandon Nordin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:57:05 +0000

Just a few FYI’s from an ACS insider:

JACS is specifically excluded in this move to condensed print.

The majority of our full text downloads are in PDF…although HTML is growing rapidly.

We are looking at enhancing our print functionality (and design), for both Journal TOCs and full articles…as well as potentially introducing ability to highlight and annotate.

With ACS journals XML tagged as part of the composition and editing process, reformatting on the fly for various device types from wide screen Macs to small hand-helds is an easily predicted future development.

Brandon Nordin
VP. Marketing, Sales and Web Innovation.

P.S:Ultimately this move will save a Central Park sized chunk of forest per year.