Tag Archives: print

The Google Model of Library Use?

18 Feb

I’m not going to get a fully fledged blog post written this week – on what is normally designated my “blogging afternoon” on my calendar – because of a looming conference deadline, a laptop crash and piles of grading. So, this week, I give you some photos and some questions.

I recently picked up some books from the Henry Madden Library here on the Fresno State campus. I went to the stacks, which, like many libraries today, use compact mobile shelving – motorized shelves that move apart at a user’s command – in order to store more books in a smaller space. It looks like this:

So when you want to find a book, you find the shelves that contain the book’s call number, press the “move right” or “move left” button, and then wait while the shelves beep (too loudly, in my opinion) and separate accordingly.

However, the library offers us some specific directions for using the shelves, as seen below:

I completely understand having this sign from an efficiency perspective. Of course, library users should not prevent others from locating their books by dawdling in the shelves.

I wonder, though, if these shelves and this sign change the way that users perceive the library, and, by extension, the purpose of a collection of books and of books themselves.

We’re already in an age in which information is expected to be pinpointed at a moment’s notice through the use of Google and so forth. Now, students walk into the library, call number in hand from an online search at home; open the shelves; grab a book – and get out of the way, as directed.

Some of my best moments in college were those spent just wandering the stacks of my university library, looking for other books related to those I’d identified through the online catalog, finding connections to other disciplines and other texts that I hadn’t anticipated before I spotted other books in the stacks. I know that those experiences enriched my education and gave me a greater appreciation for other fields of study.

Is it unrealistic? elitist? old-fashioned? overly nostalgic? nerdy? of me to want a library to encourage students to have that same kind of exploration? Or perhaps it’s completely reasonable to limit somewhat those rambling book excursions, in the name of preserving storage space, providing more workspace for students’ collaborative efforts, and promoting efficiency in information retrieval. Maybe the Google model – targeted access to information, fast and easy – is adequate for libraries and students today.

I’m torn. But not so torn that I could stop taking these photos in the library.

…433 words – that’s pretty darn fledged. Oh, well. Back to work.

Building a Magazine Around Community

4 Feb

Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr.

Though I’m not a gamer, I read recently about the new print-on-demand, subscription-only, ad-free World of Warcraft magazine, published by Future Publishing through an exclusive arrangement with Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind WoW.

This magazine demonstrates some key concepts that I think will be critical to the future of print magazine publishing:

  1. A reviewer at Ars Technica comments that “The cover is heavy, glossy, and the art is beautiful. This is something you want to pick up and read; it’s nice to have a print magazine in your hand that doesn’t feel immediately disposable.” Today’s magazine readers want an experience that’s more than just mere content delivery; the Internet can provide that. The tactile feel and distinctive look of a print magazine offer something special.
  2. The sense of being part of “something special” is amplified here because the readers are already members of an existing community (numbering in the millions) that provides them a strong sense of identity. Reading this magazine builds upon that identity and reinforces it, making their buy-in to the magazine and the game mutually productive.
  3. The ad-free content implies a certain purity and genuineness that ad-supported magazines rarely can offer. Readers won’t feel that their chosen identity as dedicated WoW gamers is somehow being played upon to sell them other products. No ads also means more room for quality editorial content.
  4. The print-on-demand model, as I recently addressed at MediaShift, is cost-effective for the publisher, reducing waste and inefficiencies inherent to the usual magazine distribution model. Additionally, as an executive involved in the project told Ars Technica, the publisher can monitor exactly who is subscribing, making it possible to target the content more precisely to an evolving readership.

One drawback to this publication is that its nature as the “official” publication of WoW may mean that its editors are overly reliant on WoW for information, and have difficulty maintaining the independence of their content. This characteristic, though, is probably somewhat unique to the WoW situation. Other magazines that follow the keys of this model outlined above would be less likely to have that potential difficulty.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this project succeeds. If the WoW community – a group dedicated to regular Internet use that is accustomed to ease of information access online – can be drawn to support a print product as well, then this model will have demonstrated its feasibility.

MediaShift: On-Demand Magazine Publishing

2 Feb

I have a new post up at MediaShift covering some of the new opportunities in on-demand magazine publishing. Here’s a favorite selection from the piece:

“I don’t think that computers and the Internet make real people’s need for real physical media go away,” said Powazek of MagCloud. “There’s content that deserves to be archived in print and some that doesn’t. For moment to moment updates about news, the web does that really well, but longer-lasting community-based niche content will still have a home in print. I hope that some magazines that have fallen on hard times will find their way to MagCloud and publish their whole back catalog there.”

So which magazines deserve to stay in print? As environmental resources become more precious and distribution channels multiply, we’ll have to determine what content deserves print status.

I also see a lot of potential in these on-demand services for student publications. Though that wasn’t a focus of this piece, it would be hugely convenient for journalism educators to use on-demand publishing to create student magazines or other collections of student work. Students could be provided copies and then order additional copies themselves to distribute to friends and family, while readers elsewhere in the world could even become fans. This seems like a cost-effective and innovative way to create student projects.

The iPad, Magazines, and the Persistent Print Simulacrum

28 Jan

Photo by me. Just imagine that my iPhone is really big. There. An iPad with magazines around it.

I know it’s early yet in the discussion of how print media will adapt for tablet platforms like Apple’s iPad. But one thing I hope will eventually develop for magazines in particular is a movement away from the reliance on a simulacrum of the printed page.

Almost every iPhone app I have that involves prolonged reading of text asks me to flip a “page” with my finger to move on. It’s not the motion that I object to, but rather the notion that my reading on this new platform has to be a simulation of turning paper pages in an actual publication. Do the app developers think so little of us that they imagine we can’t understand any other sort of interface?

No, of course not; and users have easily adapted to the iPhone’s unique set of controls. And now it’s time to start doing some serious reimagining of what print content will look like on a larger touch-enabled platform like the iPad. Magazines, with their emphasis on creative design, can be the leaders in this effort.

We can go beyond just thinking about fitting a paper page’s content onto the screen of the tablet and worrying only about usability. Instead, can we imagine a magazine as something other than ads, departments, columns, a feature well, etc., all pre-ordered for consumption front to back? The manipulable and customizable nature of a magazine on an iPad can go far beyond the print magazine simulacrum.

Maybe the iPad magazine’s table of contents will be like the queue on Hulu that allows viewers to program their own order of video consumption. For fashion magazines, features could be added that allow you to try on models’ clothes, hairstyles and makeup by touching and moving them around atop your own uploaded picture. Ads could be “torn out” with a multi-touch swipe and saved to a portfolio or shopping list (making readers’ responses more measurable at the same time). Recipes, articles and so forth could also be saved and arranged like the photo albums shown in the iPad preview. And I’m sure there are a thousand other ideas even better than those.

I know Conde Nast, Time and others are already working on iPad-specific apps for their magazines. I wonder how they will move beyond the print simulacrum to take full advantage of the tablet. As a magazine fan, I’ll look forward to seeing what they develop, and I hope it’s truly innovative.

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