Like magazines? ……Have you tried Zinio?

       If you enjoy reading magazines, you’ll want to try an exciting resource that recently became available to Fountaindale Public Library District cardholders. It’s called Zinio. To access this digital magazine streaming service, go to our library’s website at http://www.fountaindale.org and then go to the left hand side of the webpage. Scroll down a bit and you will see the links to Zinio on the left. You can access a step-by-step guide to help you set up your account by clicking on the link that says: “Click here for user guide to ZINIO.” We recommend you read and use this guide as you set up your Zinio account. The link just above this one will take you to the screen that is used to either create a new account or use to login to Zinio, once you have your account established.

More than 170 separate titles are available in Zinio. Users can stream magazines simultaneously to their computers, laptops, or tablets.  A few exceptions are Apple  devices, because Zinio requires Flash, and the Nook, because Barnes & Noble does not currently have an app for Zinio.

Zinio also gives customers the option to download magazines to their devices. Once downloaded, the magazines can be read without the need of wi-fi. Apple product fans will be happy to know that their devices are compatible with downloading from Zinio.

Unlike using some of our electronic databases that may only provide the text of a magazine article, Zinio gives you the complete content of the magazines that you are looking at… full color, text, pictures, charts, etc.

Below are examples of how Consumer Reports appears in Zinio. In addition to the content, Zinio provides easy to use tools and tips for searching, printing, and maneuvering through the magazine that you’re reading.

Interested? Go have a look at Zinio and give it a try. I’m sure you’ll find more than a few titles that you will want to read!

- Tom D.

FROM THE MAGAZINE SHELF

FROM THE MAGAZINE SHELF is the first installment of a new feature of the FOUNTAINDALE LIBRARY REFERENCE BLOG.  Many of our customers are familiar with the popular general interest magazines that our library carries. What these postings will highlight will be titles that you might find of interest, but haven’t yet picked up to read.

SKY & TELESCOPE has been published since 1941 and is written in a style that has appeal to both amateur and professional astronomers. Among the types of things this monthly publication covers are: current happenings in astronomy and space exploration, events in the amateur astronomy community, reviews of astronomical equipment, books and computer software, amateur telescope making, and astrophotography.

The April 2012 issue features an intriguing article titled Did the Moon Sink the Titanic?  by Donald W. Olson, Russell L. Doescher & Roger W. Sinnott. I was tipped off about this by a piece written by Jim Forsyth in the March 7, 2012 issue of the Chicago Tribune. New research done by forensic astronomers indicates that the moon’s unusually close approach to the  earth on January 4, 1912 may have produced  high tides strong enough to cause  a large number of large, fully grown icebergs to break away from Greenland and float into the north Atlantic shipping lanes by April, when the Titanic made her ill-fated maiden voyage.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the article sheds light on some data that many have never known about and adds more intrigue to the sinking of the ship that many said was unsinkable.

You may find the April issue of Sky & Telescope in our Magazines and Newspapers area on the 2nd Floor of the library.  You can also access it, with your Fountaindale Library card, in our InfoTrac electronic database.

-Tom D.