Delete comment from: Computational Complexity
There is an inaccurate dollar cost for printed proceedings given in the post. It is at least important to get the facts right when we discuss the issue.
Through IEEE publishing there is NO difference between the cost to the conference of paper proceedings and electronic proceedings published on CD (except for the small difference in the shipping cost).
Through ACM about half the cost of "printed" proceedings for a good size conference like STOC is fixed editorial cost of compiling the proceedings. The proper incremental comparison is about $4 per CD versus about $20 per paper proceedings of 800 pages. For smaller conferences the fixed editorial cost is a larger percentage which is why the proceedings end up being so pricey.
"Editorial cost" includes producing tables of contents, indices, cover art, and a lot of stuff that one could easily automate along with the organization imprimateur, ISBN, and distribution after the conference is over.
It is true that conferences no longer can make money by selling printed proceedings at a hefty profit for those not attending (though all our extra printed copies for STOC 2006 sold out) but the remark about libraries does not seem to be correct for major ACM/IEEE/SIAM conferences like STOC/FOCS/SODA. (I just checked the UW library catalog.) What is true is that libraries don't get the Springer LNCS in hard copy (ICALP/CRYPTO etc). The major problem is not the cost of each proceedings volume but the fact that Springer will publish virtually ANYTHING in the LNCS series and there is a lot of crap that libraries would have to pay for and shelve that nobody ever would look at.
As far as I can see the big win for going electronic will only occur if it allows us to cut significant time (more than a month, say) between submission of final articles and conference dates.
Jul 30, 2008, 12:46:00 PM
Posted to Proceedings