Dear all,

Many thanks for your replies about Zinio.

 

My original question was : Does anyone use or have experience of Zinio, the e-magazine platform? It seems to be used fairly widely in public libraries and we are keen to get it (or something similar) to provide a more flexible way to read our magazines, particularly with distance learners in mind.

 

In short summary: the answer was no! Browzine got mentioned by a couple of people, but I don’t think it does quite what we want. When we spoke to Zinio they weren’t so sure they could deal with our authentication systems, so we will be parking it for now.

Here are your responses in full:

 

·         We tried to explore Zinio as a platform option when a particular green journal we wanted was only available via Zinio, but they were impossible to deal with and could not accommodate us! Best wishes, Jane Furness, Academic Support Librarian: Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh

 

·         Rachel, we don't use it here but I have been thinking similarly to you of late and would be really interested in any information you come up with! Duncan, Duncan Chappell MSc. MCLIP AFHEA, Academic Liaison Librarian, Glasgow School of Art

 

·         I looked into this for Coventry University but it doesn’t seem geared up to institutional subscriptions.  I’d be interested therefore if you hear back from any HEs set up with a subscription or something similar.  Many of our arts magazines are in print. but online they only exist on databases and as you know, the user experience on these is pretty poor from a browsing point of view. Best wishes, Gill, Gill Evans, Academic Liaison Librarian (Art & Design/Performing Arts} Lanchester Library Coventry University

 

·         At UAL we are signed up to Browzine, although it's not really vigorously promoted. Attached is a review I co-wrote last year for the ARLIS Newsletter's Online Resource column with more details. All the best, Cassy - Cassy Sachar, Assistant Academic Support Librarian, Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London

 

·         I'm in the US, so we may have completely different licensing issues to deal with, but we do not use Zinio. Instead, we use BrowZine, which supports scholarly journals rather than trade magazines. At first it was only available for tablet devices or smartphones, but there is now a web version. We've put together a little research guide to help our users access our BrowZine journals. See: http://guides.library.ucla.edu/browzine Best wishes,  Janine J. Henri, Architecture, Design, and Digital Services Librarian UCLA Arts Library

 

Many thanks again to  all who took the time to contact me. It’s much appreciated!

Kind regards, Rachel 

 

Rachel Browning, M.A., PGCHE

Academic Liaison Librarian

 

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