In the days before the Internet I was a regular magazine subscriber and the shelves in my home office used to groan under the weight of all those glossy pages. My magazine buying days have long since gone, replaced by a diet of online news delivered first by USENET followed by online forums, web sites and most recently RSS feeds read through services like Feedly.com or apps like Flipboard.
Earlier this year I started a volunteer role at my local library to show local residents how to use the library computers or if they prefer their own devices to get more out of the Internet and PC and tablet applications. It was during my familiarisation with the library services on their web site that I came across this page ! Basically library members can register for FREE to access a range of magazines through the popular service Zinio.com. Zinio has been around for a long time and I had looked at the magazines available through the service over the years, in fact before I spotted the library link I had been debating subscribing to National Geographic for cash ! So glad I didn’t now as the Nat Geo is one of the magazines available through the Telford library service for free.
All that is needed to take advantage of the deal is a library membership card ( available for free to local residents ). Once you are a member you can register through the link on the library web site which gives you access to select from the range of magazines that the library make available ( currently 31 titles at Telford ) and download to your tablet/desktop Zinio reader app or to read online through the Zinio web site.
Since signing up for this service I have spoken with a variety of friends and work colleagues and told them how I can access magazines online for free. When we have looked at the services available from their local libraries ( Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall etc ) we have discovered that they also offer the same sort of service. In fact most of them have a wider range of magazine titles available than my library in Telford !
If you would like to subscribe to this service head over to your local library web site and do a search for Zinio, I am betting that you will find there is a free service available to you that you didn’t know was there !
Enjoy,