Periodicals News
The library's periodicals subscriptions for the Art and Design program have been a sore spot for some time. I have some news about the situation that I want to share.
First of all, I want to correct a misconception regarding a budget cut in the library a few years ago. We had our budget for periodicals slashed dramatically and discontinued a lot of subscriptions. I've heard from some people in the Art and Design department about how you were affected by that. I have learned, however, that although Art periodicals were considered for the cut-backs, they were ultimately spared - no periodical subscriptions for the Art + Design program were discontinued because of those cuts. There have been a few periodicals that have stopped publishing in the past few years, but aside from those the Periodicals holdings for Art + Design have stayed really completely intact. The reason your periodicals were not cut and subscriptions for other departments were is that print periodicals in Art have fine quality images that can't be replaced by online versions of the publications, and these images are the most important part of the contents. I'm glad that this was recognized by the library administration. So, I hope this news is something of a relief to those may have thought our subscriptions to art periodicals have been cut in the last few years.
For a list of our print periodicals for Art, Design, Art History, Art Education and Photography, see:
http://www.d.umn.edu/lib/ref/art/artper.htm.
Now for the real news:
Graphis magazine went through a change. They split their publication into three separate publications: one for Design, one for Advertising, and one for Photography, and changed the pricing structure. What I did was continue just the graphic design title, since that is their strength. It saved a little money, and with that money I was able to subscribe to a great title, Adbusters, which was requested by a graphic design student. I was a subscriber to Adbusters when I was in my mid-20's and know the magazine well. Its subtitle is "the journal of the mental environment," and besides being a showcase for new design ideas, it promulgates ideas about ethical and radical design and a theory of media ecology. Its editor is Kalle Lasn, whose new book, Design Anarchy, I'm ordering for the library.
To clear up a related bit of possible confusion... I promised one faculty member that I would use the savings from the Graphis change to start a subscription to Step Inside Design. This turns out to have been unnecessary, because we've already got a stable subscription to it. I think our periodicals holdings might be better than some Art + Design faculty realize!