27 September 2024
Ending Print BAMS Option
After considerable deliberation, AMS Council has made the decision to eliminate the print option for the BAMS member magazine beginning with the 2025 Membership year. The digital BAMS magazine will continue to be available and we will simplify access to this content by providing a direct link to a PDF version that can be immediately downloaded and read online or printed.
Why the Change?
Over the past 5 years we have seen a significant decline in the number of Members that choose to receive the BAMS magazine in its print form, dropping from 73% in 2019 to just over 25% in the last year. Financially, producing the BAMS magazine comes at a considerable cost to the Society. Expenses associated with the magazine exceed $700k per year and this is a reduction from past years when costs exceeded $1M per year. Printing and mailing alone costs the Society approximately $175k per year. Member dues only offset a fraction of the total cost for the BAMS magazine Member benefit.
Given the trends in our Members accessing the BAMS magazine and the very high cost of producing it, the AMS is moving forward with making changes to the magazine over the upcoming year, starting with providing BAMS magazine in digital form only. The peer-reviewed content under the BAMS name will continue with no substantive changes. This content is open access and can be freely accessed on the AMS Journals Online site.
Moving Forward
Earlier this year, we began assessing how AMS uses the BAMS magazine as “the official organ of the Society” as defined in Article II of the Bylaws of AMS, and exploring more broadly how best to communicate with and highlight the work of our membership and the broader weather, water, and climate community. This effort is part of a larger project to assess how we can better serve our members through the BAMS magazine and other existing AMS content channels, and to identify and implement a cohesive content strategy.
AMS will continue to work on its overall assessment of the BAMS magazine and AMS communications in the upcoming months. As part of this process, you can provide input on the future of AMS communications and the current BAMS Magazine through 15 October.
We will spend 2025 working to implement a new approach to Member communications and anticipate that by early 2026 the official organ of the Society (currently the BAMS Member magazine) will be redefined in an online form, potentially under a new name. It will continue to feature highlights of work from both BAMS and the full suite of AMS peer-reviewed publications, along with other important highlights of our Membership and activities of the Society. Over the upcoming year that online communication channel and content will be more clearly defined.
We will take into consideration feedback provided via the survey and other channels and incorporate that input into the future direction of AMS communications. Our goal is to provide a new direction for our Member communications that will result in a content channel that is more robust, more accessible, and better serves our Membership.
-AMS Council