In writing this column, I am on a plane returning from Mexico City. This was the first time the Executive Committee met in Mexico City. The city is a beautiful place with impressive buildings and great museums. It also had some of the best restaurants I have ever visited. My mind may forget their names, but my stomach never forgets.
One of the items that was finalized at the meeting was a review of the AAPG Datapages member subscription process. This Datapages library is one of the largest petroleum geoscience digital libraries in the world. It contains all of AAPG’s publications – including the special publications. In addition, over the past 10 years AAPG has offered to digitize the publications of Affiliated and Associated societies and those of the Sections.
Typically there is no cost to the contributing society for digitization. AAPG provides it as a service as long as their digits can be included as part of the Datapages library. In addition the contributing society receives a royalty each year for the Datapages industry subscriptions. To date AAPG has provided more than $620,000 in royalties.
As a result, Datapages includes digital publication collections from more than 30 geoscience publishers – mostly Affiliated and Associated societies. Contributors include the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Circum Pacific Council of Energy and Mineral Resources, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, Houston Geological Society, Indonesian Petroleum Association, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, Tulsa Geological Society and Wyoming Geological Association.
(Note: SEPM is included in the corporate subscriptions but has its own individual subscription program).
To date most of the subscriptions for the Datapages library are to corporations and university endowments through the AAPG Foundation. The monies from these subscriptions are used to add more digital publications into the system. There are a few subscriptions for individuals, but until now there was no online payment program to make it easy to subscribe.
At an earlier meeting in San Antonio, the Executive Committee decided to provide the opportunity for all members to subscribe. Starting in January, any AAPG member can subscribe to the Datapages digital library for less than $21 per month ($295 per year).
For now, subscriptions will not be offered to non-members.
Please note this is an individual subscription only. Corporate subscriptions are available based on the number of users in the company.
The announcement concerning the new individual subscriptions will be made in January via e-mail. Members also can check online for the subscription. Individuals will be able to access the digits through an online payment process and your regular member password.
Sometimes I am asked, “Why doesn’t AAPG just provide the Datapages library free to all members?”
- First, the Datapages collection is an ongoing digital program with regular expenses for personnel, equipment and software.
- Second, AAPG would risk losing the corporate subscriptions that support the digitization program and allows AAPG to add new publications.
- Third, other than the BULLETIN and Special Publications, AAPG does not own this data. It is owned by the various societies.
- Finally, there are serious tax implications to AAPG not-for-profit status if we start giving everything free (even though we would like to).
Datapages is a tremendous digital library and offers significant, fingertip information on fields, formations, geological processes, geophysical interpretation, etc. It can be a key asset for any geologist, geophysicist or engineer.
I hope you enjoy it.
Datapages Website