Now You Can Read Full Magazines Online with a Library Card
September 1, 2015 — With just a library card, magazine readers can now access more than 120 popular magazines anytime, anywhere, on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. It’s the newest service offered beginning Tuesday, Sept. 1, through the Springfield-Greene County Library District.
There are no holds, no checkout periods and no limits to the number of magazines you can download.
The digital magazines are provided through Zinio for Libraries, a product from Recorded Books.
To access the site, just go to thelibrary.org/digital and click on Zinio for Libraries. From there, browse the library’s collection of popular titles including Better Homes & Gardens, Car and Driver, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek and National Geographic.
From the main site, you can set up a free, personal account using your library card number, a chosen login and password. Those with accounts on IndieFlix through the library must use that same login and password.
Once you create an account and select the magazine you want to read, you can read complete editions of that magazine as well as back issues.
Other special features:
• Zinio’s technology digitally recreates a magazine page for page, including full-color pictures and intuitive navigation
• Some magazines such as National Geographic also have interactive elements including audio and video that you can use by clicking on their links.
• Browse the library's collection of titles one at a time, search for your favorite magazines by title or use the convenient category feature to find new magazines that match your interests.
• You can also download magazines to your mobile device for offline reading. Mobile apps are available for iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire and Android.
The benefits: Magazine lovers can go paperless if they choose; avoid the $10-$15 annual subscription fees; access a wider variety of magazines than they wish to pay for; read magazines they don’t receive anytime, without making a trip to the library.
The library will continue to carry paper editions of the 1,200 magazine and newspaper subscriptions currently available in the library branches.