News Detail

The Value of Membership

11/1/2018

In keeping with its central mission and vision to disseminate knowledge needed to use concrete effectively to meet the demands of a changing world, ACI has made its extensive knowledge base of concrete information even easier to access—available 24/7, and always totally up-to-date. I want to use this month's President's Memo to update all on how ACI gives broad access to its archives on concrete knowledge. I hope you will take advantage of recent changes that have expanded the value of ACI membership.

ACI individual members receive free digital access to the Institute's practices, which contain over 200 guides, reports, and technotes covering all aspects of concrete design, construction, maintenance, and repair. These documents are prepared by ACI’s technical committees and represent the consensus viewpoint of industry experts.

ACI members also receive free digital access to both the ACI Materials Journal and ACI Structural Journal that define the state of the art by publishing original research papers from a global family of authors. The journal archives contain over 100 years of searchable, peer-reviewed technical articles on all aspects of concrete technology. Included in this amazing collection is not only the most recent information on cutting-edge technology but also classic papers by pioneers in the industry who established the basis for how we design and construct concrete today.

All ACI members have free access to Concrete International and its digital archives. To access any of the CI and journal articles, simply visit the "Abstracts Search" on concrete.org.

In addition to access to the information described in the previous paragraphs—resources that are free to all ACI members (and available to nonmembers for a competitive fee)—ACI has compiled other types of its information in cost-effective subscription packages that are continually updated and digitally available anytime for users’ convenience. The following points will cover those packages.

ACI Codes and Specifications, which includes ACI's 50 active codes and specifications on structural, environmental, residential, repair, inspection, and more, are included in a package that also contains historical versions of these documents. Many of these codes and standards are legally adopted by jurisdictions both domestically and internationally. This collection also includes the SI (metric) versions of the documents, historical versions, and versions translated into languages other than English. This package is available for $235 to members and can be purchased by contacting the ACI customer service department at ACICustomerService@concrete.org or through your annual membership renewal.

Another valuable new subscription package is access to ACI’s Symposium Publications. This package includes over 6000 papers published since 1962 by leading industry designers, practitioners, researchers, and academicians. These documents are especially valuable to the practitioner, as they include many case studies and project-specific information. As with all subscription packages, additional information is provided in this package as new Symposium Volumes are published. This package is available for $49 to members.

ACI University is the name of ACI’s online training courses and educational resources. Members are given free tokens for a few courses, and they can have full access via a new annual subscription service that began earlier this year. Through this subscription, individuals can take every course of the over 200 offered in ACI University, plus new courses that are added each month. This includes the popular on-demand courses on ACI 318, courses comprising ACI’s certificate programs, and courses on nearly any other concrete-related topic one could imagine. Subscribers also have access to all ACI University's live webinars delivered by industry experts. ACI University courses and webinars are especially helpful for engineers looking to earn professional development hours toward their professional licenses. This package is available for $99 to members. View the list of on-demand courses and upcoming webinars at ACIUniversity.com.

For over 100 years, ACI has developed technically sound, unbiased information on the best use of concrete. We continue that tradition today, and we are adding greater value to that information by making it more accessible, relevant, and useful to all who need it to meet the demands of a changing world.

David A. Lange