This will apply to TAMS from sometime in February and for AMPS and RAMS from AMPS/RAMS 2002B onwards.
The decision means that the results of all these surveys will in future be published on CD-Rom, which will replace the hard copy printed report volumes.
"While the cost of paper and printing has increased dramatically in the past few years, this decision makes it possible not to increase the prices of the AMPS, RAMS and TAMS data", says Dr Paul Haupt, Managing Director of SAARF. "It will also give us added flexibility to further enhance the reports as the present format and content were greatly influenced by the restrictions imposed on us by the size of an A4 page. We hope that this change as well as further developments that will follow later will also make AMPS, RAMS and TAMS more affordable to users."
The information and the format will initially be the same as that which was used up to now in the printed volumes and with which users are familiar. It will also be secured so that it cannot be changed (either by mistake or deliberately).
A computer will in future be available in the SAARF Library for users who want to access the information in the library. Library users will also have the facility to print tables at a minor cost, as is currently the case with photocopying.
The above decision does not affect the AMPS™, RAMS™ and TAMS™ databases, which have been available in an electronic format for many years.
