My job as a web editor at RGJ.com is to deliver the news in fresh, unconventional ways. One of the unspoken goals of what I do is to help a lumbering (ofttimes slumbering) relic remain vital in a time when our core product - a dead tree dropped on thousands of doorstops (or bushes or neighbor's driveways) - is increasingly irrelevant.
We employ live streaming video, breaking news updates, email blasts, live chat, text messages and twitter, to deliver information to a growing segment of people who simply don't care to get yesterday's news in a non-eco-friendly format.
So you know I'm sold on digital journalism.
But, still. There's something about a magazine; something about glossy double-trucks and the tactile feel of a well-designed monthly that just does it for me. Which is why, for years, I've hit up the Northwest Reno Library's expansive magazine rack with its back issues and quiet corners ready-made for flipping through the pages and discovering something new.
On a whim, I can check out six back issues of Men's Health and get my butt back in shape, until that falls away and I turn to the copies of Wine Spectator to help fuel a summer of over-indulgence. And so on. The magazine rack is there to satisfy my every moody phase, and it has never let me down, especially feeding my hunger for the otherwise overpriced British publication, The Economist.
Over the past month or so, when I've been up at the NW library, I've noticed little placards under select magazines reading, "Due to Washoe County budget cuts, this publication will be canceled effective 1/1/09"
Well, just crap.
This seems to infect about 10 percent of the magzines, with titles ranging from Make (The DIY mag) to Fast Company (a personal fave) to Adbusters. Honestly, I can't make it through a full issue of Adbusters without feeling like a total cornpone rube, but hey, it looks cool when you carry it around, right? And it's absolutely worth saving.
That in mind, I checked with the disinterested lady checking out books out front.
"So, about the magazines you're cutting..." I said.
Before I could finish my thought, she'd shoved an orange note card in the general direction of my face, saying, "you can fill this out and tell us which one you'd like to keep."
Oh. Okay. Well, good. I wasn't the only one concerned about the fate of our magazines. But still, as I wrote out my requests, I couldn't help but think of these cards being summarily rounded up like little cockroaches and swept straight into a garbage bin at the end of each shift. In other words, I didn't sense more than a token effort to hear my concerns.
Undaunted, I pressed on.
"But short of that working," I said, "What if someone wanted to make a specific donation to save a specific magazine?" What I had in mind was offering $20 to personally salvage Fast Company from certain death, ensuring it would be available to all public library patrons over the next 12 months. Then, maybe others would see my gift and want to do the same. Maybe we could do this thing after all.
She shrugged. If she were hooked up to a heart rate monitor, I wouldn't have been surprised to see a flatline. She blinked once, digging somewhere deep to come up with, "You want, I can have someone call you orrrrr.....?"
It was a big "orrrrrr," that one. It was an "or" that said, "or you could quit asking pointless questions in the last 15 minutes of my shift and let me check these people out."
So I begged her off and promised myself to return when I could hopefully catch someone who might be interested in me starting this deal.
Maybe not how I'd wanted it to go. I guess I thought the library would be jumping at a citizen's offer to pitch in and help. I don't doubt on another day, I'd have gotten a warmer reception from someone else.
My question to you - all Washoe County Library patrons - is this worth doing? Should we try to salvage some of the quality content offered to our children and our students and less fortunate neighbors who can't afford a subscription to a magazine in this tough climate?
Yeah, there are bigger issues. Diabetes, foreclosures, you name it. But this one struck me as particularly important. Any thoughts?
Reno blogger James Ball was born in 1973 and raised in North Georgia, attending the University of Georgia in Athens. He and his wife, Pam, moved to Lake Tahoe in 1995, eventually settling in Reno in the early 2000s. They live in Northwest Reno with their two boys, Thomas and Alex. James is a web editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal.
I can get behind that. Count me in for a $25 dollar donation to get Mountain Gazette in the Library. But I want it in the Downtown branch.
-M