ACS: Alteration of author names

Newsfeed from American Chemical Society:  my message to ACS

Subject: New policy will allow authors an easy route to change names on previous publications

I am immensely concerned at this proposal to alter publication names, especially in secret.  This will cause immense confusion in the literature, to everyone’s detriment.

  1. How will you prevent identity theft?  “No proof of name change is required”!
  2. If a name is changed from Jones to Smith, how will a reference to Jones (especially in a non-ACS journal) be connected or located?

This becomes a serious alteration to the history of chemistry.   In what way is this desirable?

Leslie Glasser

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life. 

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