Julie Bulger
In this installment of the Pushing My Shelf blog series, Julie talks about discovering online magazines, especially those that appeal the most to her such food magazines and foreign language magazines and even foreign language food magazines!
This month we thought we would do a blog series for the Push Your Shelf Bingo Challenge. The challenge is to complete Bingo squares that “push your shelf.” In other words, read or try something that you might not ordinarily consider; something not typically found on your bookshelf. Find out more here.
To cheer you on some participating staff members* are contributing short blogs that recount their experience completing a Bingo challenge and describing how that square “pushes their shelf”.
* Staff members can play. (Just not win.)
Sometimes I’m really amazed with how many things we have access to with just our library card. Not only are there the physical materials you can check out from the library itself, but also the amount of digital content that’s accessible at any time of the day. And it’s all for free (one of my favorite words)!
It was about a year ago when our digital magazine collection became available through the library’s Libby App, which houses one of our downloadable book and audiobook collections. The selection of digital magazines available in the app currently numbers in the thousands. That’s a lot of magazines to choose from, but Libby makes it easy to browse the collection by subject. For instance, I enjoy food magazines, so it’s convenient to just browse the Food & Wine selections if that’s the type of magazine I’m currently in the mood for. If there are magazines that you read regularly, Libby can send you notifications to your email or phone to let you know when new issues are available to download. You can borrow and read them on your own time, and then renew them as many times as you want. Most magazines have about 2-3 years of back issues available as well.
A couple of years ago I decided to start learning a foreign language. I’m currently studying Spanish on my own and at my own pace, so I utilize as many library resources as I can in my studies. I’ve discovered there are many foreign language magazines in our digital collection, including plenty of Spanish-language titles. Since I enjoy cooking, there’s a nice selection of Spanish cooking magazines choose from. Being able to have access to these helps make language learning more fun for me. I now have a goal to find a recipe, translate it, and then make it.
There’s a lot available to you with a library card. Being able to access collections like magazines is easy and convenient, and, most importantly, saves me a lot of money!
To learn how to access magazines through the Libby App, click here.
Julie is an Information Services assistant at the Bowman Library.
