ACS Publications has recently launched a dynamic new web delivery system, hosting 34 ACS peer-reviewed research journals on a fully integrated web platform rich with new features and functionality. The new website provides a state-of-the-art online experience for information discovery, interactivity and research productivity for scientists and professionals worldwide. A Flash-based demonstration available at http://pubs.acs.org/flashdemo showcases many of the features and benefits of the new site.

That’s all well and good, but boy do they make you jump through digital hoops to get registered and up and running. First off, I had several duplicate emails making the announcement and telling me to login at pubs.acs.org to set my e-alerts (I only want ASAPs but I seem to be getting ToCs now as well). You cannot then just login with your membership number, you have to register as a user, but that happens on www.acs.org which is announced via a popup dialog box that has to be closed before you can then re-enter the new URL instead of simply redirecting.

There are several more steps but once you’re in, correcting errors in your work address seems to involve starting entry from scratch so I abandoned that update with my old zipcode intact. Just as I thought I’d got through the last hoop and clicked the link in the confirmation email, I get a “network error” on attempting to login. Not a fun experience, I have to say, but at least they’ve got a nice flash video, and once you’re in it should be well worth the effort…