Magazines and Newspapers

Continuing on from the Media Commons area, we arrive at the magazine and newspaper section. This is a long, double sided shelving unit.

On the front facing shelves there are sample magazine covers. These are laminated and taped to the unit. They are alphabetized to help patrons and staff find what they are looking for quickly. For example, let’s say I was a patron looking for the magazine Every Day with Rachel Ray. I would quickly locate the vicinity of magazines beginning with the letter E and then find the magazine I wanted.

Once a patron finds the desired publication, the shelf is simply lifted revealing all the magazines of that particular title.

Here, the magazines are shelved by month making it easy to locate the most recent edition. All of these magazines are barcoded and available for check out.

As you can also see in the picture, this unit also houses newspapers.

The most recent edition of the various newspapers will be visible with the most local news at the top.

Again, the shelves can be lifted revealing back copies of the newspapers.

The top of the magazine/newspaper unit also stores honor magazines.

Some of the most popular ones, in this case quilting magazines, have been grouped together and put into binders. The honor magazines work just like the honor books previously discussed in another post. Honor magazines do not have to be checked out, but the circulation staff should be notified how many magazine binders are being taken. The library counts honor circs as “in house circulation.” Patrons are on the honor system to return the binders.

In keeping with the display of artwork throughout the library, the top of this unit also is home to a few sculptures. The first one depicts two people with open books.

The second is a bronze sculpture called The Reading Girl which, if memory serves, was donated to the library.

Here are a few more pieces on display on top of the magazine/newspaper unit.

As part of my read through project, I have explored all of the magazines shown earlier and several papers. I tend to gravitate towards magazines that have plenty of pictures and deal with the broad topics of family, home, cooking, and crafting. There are many other magazines that cover a vast array of other interesting topics.

The magazine & newspaper collection at Fulton County Public Library has in itself probably saved me hundreds of dollars since I can read all of these magazines and newspapers for free instead of subscribing to the magazines and newspapers myself. This has also helped to reduce clutter in my home since I no longer have to store my own copies!

Just for fun, here is a library savings calculator for you to play with to see how much your library can (or is) saving you:

http://www.fulco.lib.in.us/about-fcpl/library-value-calculator/

Happy calculating!