ATG Special Report — Purchasing Articles by Demand-Driven Acquisition: An Alternative Serial Distribution Model for Libraries

It’s 2017, and library patrons still have limited ways to access the text of articles behind pay walls. The current mix of subscriptions, interlibrary loan or document delivery, and pay per view is unsustainable for endangered library budgets, and thus is unsustainable for publishers. It’s time to begin leveraging the tools we use for e-books-- discovery services, demand-driven acquisition (DDA), and perpetual purchase-- and apply them to articles. After all, the distinction between a monograph and a serial is fluid. Books in series, book-length articles, article-length books, and special issues sold as monographs illustrate the folly of treating them as inherently different creatures. This article presents our argument in favor of DDA for serial content, and also reports the results of related surveys we conducted

Mechanistic Insights into Ring-Opening and Decarboxylation of 2-Pyrones in Liquid Water and Tetrahydrofuran

2-Pyrones, such as triacetic acid lactone, are a promising class of biorenewable platform chemicals that provide access to an array of chemical products and intermediates. We illustrate through the combination of results from experimental studies and first-principle density functional theory calculations that key structural features dictate the mechanisms underlying ring-opening and decarboxylation of 2-pyrones, including the degree of ring saturation, the presence of C═C bonds at the C4═C5 or C5═C6 positions within the ring, as well as the presence of a β-keto group at the C4 position. Our results demonstrate that 2-pyrones undergo a range of reactions unique to their structure, such as retro-Diels–Alder reactions and nucleophilic addition of water. In addition, the reactivity of 2-pyrones and the final products formed is shown to depend on the solvent used and the acidity of the reaction environment. The mechanistic insights obtained here provide guidance for the selective conversion of 2-pyrones to targeted chemicals.Reprinted (adapted) with permission from Journal of American Chemical Society, 135(15); 5699-5708. Doi: 10.1021/ja312075r. Copyright 2013 American Chemical Society. </p

The Charleston Conference Continues – Getting to No: Calling for an End to Contention

The authors reflect on Thirty-third Charleston Conference