The ACM Digital Library, which contains all Association for Computing Machinery publications and related materials, will be free and openly accessible from January 2026.

The ACM Digital Library is a database of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that contains papers and bibliographic references related to computing and information technology. Many papers in the ACM Digital Library were previously available on a paid subscription basis, but the ACM has announced a plan to transition to fully open access from January 1, 2026.

Open Access
https://dl.acm.org/openaccess

The ACM Digital Library is an academic database that is intended for institutional subscriptions, not individual subscriptions, and is primarily available for viewing at universities and research institutions that have annual contracts with ACM. Individuals can also purchase individual articles, but at several thousand yen per article, it is relatively expensive for research use. Also, while it was possible to access some papers by becoming an 'ACM Member' with a paid subscription, this did not mean that all papers were available for unlimited reading.

Therefore, whether or not one could access many papers depended on the institution one was affiliated with, and those who graduated or left the institution, or freelance or corporate engineers, generally had no choice but to purchase the papers individually, which was expensive.

ACM has therefore announced plans to make all papers open access, meaning that they will be available to anyone, regardless of their affiliation, at any time, without registration. Open access is expected to increase readership and citations of papers, as well as foster collaboration, transparency, and cumulative progress, strengthening progress across the field of computing.

Additionally, publishers such as universities and research institutions can enter into a comprehensive agreement with ACM called ' ACM Open .' By joining ACM Open, researchers gain the right to publish their papers open access and have them available for viewing for a certain period of time. Even if you are not a member of ACM Open, you can still publish open access by paying the article processing charge (APC). Under this system, the cost of publishing a paper is borne by the research institution, and readers can access the full text regardless of their affiliation or registration.

Below is a movie in which ACM explains ACM Open.

ACM Open - YouTube


ACM said, 'Our goal is to make this transition smooth and frictionless for all contributors to ACM publications and conferences. Thank you for your commitment to advancing computing research and practice, and we look forward to continuing this work together toward a more open and accessible future.'

This issue has also become a hot topic on the social news site Hacker News, where André Gaul, CEO of the European Mathematical Society (EMS) publishing house, appeared in a thread and explained, 'Publishing high-quality papers costs money, but as an alternative to the existing model, we have adopted a 'Subscribe to Open' model. This means that libraries that subscribe to a journal review their revenues and costs at the beginning of the fiscal year and, depending on their revenue rate, decide whether to make the paper available to subscribers only or open access.' He went on to give an example of how EMS is achieving open access in a way that is different from that of the ACM.