NB: A very special thank you to the Montgomery County Public Library system in Maryland, for not only having magazines digitally, but also offering two free COVID test kits per day for anyone who walks in.
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I’ve written about this before, but the apps and options have updated, so let’s revisit!
One of my favorite things to do when my brain is fried and I want to read but don’t have the total bandwidth to engage with a book is to deep dive into digital magazines.
Remember magazines? I used to buy a bunch when I flew on airplanes (heh, remember doing that?) or when I took a road trip. I’d read magazines on the beach or at a pool, or when getting a pedicure. For my brain, magazines often signal “vacation” or “travel” or “relaxing time.”
In case that’s true for you, here are some options to find some favorite magazines (and read several issues at a time – woo hoo!) through your library!
My examples here are based on my access options in Montgomery County, Maryland, but if you check your library website, there is likely a digital magazine option in their menu. I do know that Kindle Unlimited offers magazine options (I found Coastal Living and read a few issues one afternoon just for the eyeball p0rn and beach vibes) but I wanted to focus on the Library options because whoo, they are robust.
My library offers a few options, including Libby by Overdrive (which replaced RBDigital, which I used to use), PressReader, and Flipster, which is from EBSCO. I’m going to take a look at Libby in this post, and save Flipster for a later update. PressReader looks very cool in a browser, and there are a ton of curated collections based on topics, but the app doesn’t load on my phone no matter what I do.
The bad news is that you will likely need to set up an account with each option using your library card credentials, but the good news is that once you’re set up and have the app, you can drink cocktails and read every issue of Smoothies magazine.
Libby Magazines
In Libby, if I click the Search button, one of the filters tells me there are over 4,000 magazines available.
That ought to hold me for one afternoon, don’t you think?
Note: You can also find national and international newspapers, but I’m trying to relax here for three minutes, so that didn’t fit my brief.
Some of these are single-title special edition magazines, like the People special edition about Downton Abbey, or Flea Markets USA.
In preferences, I can filter by language, but with English selected, there are still over 3,000 titles! That said, once I filter by English language magazines, I can’t search again. And the search function can be cumbersome because it likes exact matches. So if I wanted to look at “entertainment” magazines, I’m going to get “EW” and that’s it.
One strategy is to think of your favorite mags and search to see if they’re there. I’ve found (and read an absolute metric bucket ton of):
- Cross Stitcher, which is a UK-based magazine, and I love it.
- Hello! and Hola! Magazines: do I know who 72% of these people are? Nope, not a clue. It is entertaining? Often, yes. For example: Why do all the people being profiled stand on the staircase dressed like they’re going to an opulent gala where attendees will be judged on hair volume? I have no idea. But count on at least two, possibly three, photos of someone in a ballgown on a slippy-looking staircase in every issue.
Other options:
- Us Weekly – the ultimate in pedicure-drying reading material
- Vogue – your phone won’t weigh any more than it does already, even with six issues of Vogue on board.
International Crafty!
If I search the word “Quilt” inside Libby, I have a BUNCH of magazine options from the US, Australia, England, and Canada, including:
Tip: often something that is labeled as “Series” inside Libby is a magazine. I’ve found some lovely crafting magazines from overseas by searching for a keyword related to that craft.
For example (TAKE COVER KNITTERS! AVERT YOUR EYES) searching “Knit” yields:
- The Knitter (177 issues!)
- Interweave Knits (15 issues!)
- Simply Knitting (so many issues I lost count)
Then after looking up the parent company of some of the above titles, I found Mollie Magazine for all things crafty, plus another magazine called Love Patchwork & Quilting, and I’m going to need another gin & tonic.
Alas, “Love Patchwork and Quilting” didn’t come up with a searched “Quilt” because it wasn’t an exact match, so I’m glad I looked up the parent publisher.
Searching “cook” yields (oh no):
- Cook’s Illustrated
- Cook’s Country (I used to subscribe to this one. This magazine has the biggest format I have ever seen. The paper is massive! Digitally, it fits on my phone.)
While it’s a little cumbersome and annoying to not be able to sort or refine by topic (unless I can and I missed that inside the app) I find quite a lot to read.
Tip: Once you decide to borrow a magazine, Libby will ask you,
Would you like to be notified on new issues? Add your Notify Me tag to this title to subscribe.
Why, yes! Yes, I would!
And then, at moments when my brain fry is extra crispy, I get a notification, “A new issue of Tatler is available now!” Aw, yeah.
What about you? Do you love reading magazines, print or digital? What are your favorites? Any you recommend? Have you looked for them at the library?
One of my joys prepandemic and pre-kids was to go to the library and spend a lazy morning leafing through magazines. I also recently discovered magazines through Libby and while it’s not as idle a pastime as actually going to the library without my kids, it is pretty wonderful. Also- many of the libraries near me have stopped providing print magazines and while I miss the tactile nature of leafing though a magazine, the humungous selection on Libby can’t be beat.
@Diane: Your comment somehow nudged a memory loose of mid to late 2000s tech startups trying to make ‘digital magazines’ out of online articles, blog posts, social media, and images that users liked elsewhere. Like people were trying to digitally create the ‘leafing through a magazine’ feeling digitally. I remember doing that, too, and I’m not sure it’s possible to recreate the experience.
My best friend loves magazines. LOVES them. Instead of towels in her bathroom linen cabinet, she has magazines. (They’re in stacks all over the house.) She doesn’t necessarily read much in them, but she likes to flip through them. Gardening magazines are a favorite. I introduced her to Libby a few years ago and she spent hours flipping through the digital issues. I may have broken her of the magazine-buying habit.
I think my longest-running magazine habit was begging my dad to buy me those teen magazines like BB, Bop, and Tiger Beat circa 1998, because Hanson was my jam and a big cover feature on them with new pull-out posters was my catnip. Oh, and being a teen of the late 90s in the evangelical Deep South, my grandmother gifted me a subscription to Brio for a few years. My favorite part was always the “Holly and the Ivy Halls” comic.
I work in a library now and there are very few teen magazines in print. We carry Girls’ Life. Our adult magazines are more robust, and the selection of print magazines can vary by library.
I used to have a serious magazine habit. 🙂 My favorites were aspirational artsy things like Ornament, Lapidary Journal, and Architectural Digest. Now I get only three: Sierra, Nature, and Audubon – and I’d rather not get those, because I could read most of the articles online, plus the print versions have teenytinyprint and ye olde eyes can only take one little essay at a time, but because It’s There I try to read them that way. My job is eight solid hours of fielding small bits of printed information; at the end of it, what I want is a Book.
Thank you for highlighting this! I always loved magazines but as a child could not afford subscriptions to everything I read (which was everything haha). The library was a great outlet for all that reading. While I do miss the tactile nature of a glossy magazine page, nothing beats the free convenience of Libby magazines on my phone.
Mollie is great for general crafts. Simply Sewing is a great UK sewing publication that links to free patterns, quite a few of which are stuffed animals (!!!). And for food Delish Quarterly and Joy The Baker are both underrated food/recipe reads.
@Lynette: I am now going to read Delish and Joy the Baker all afternoooooooon. Thank you!!
The library systems in Maryland are amazing with what you can borrow, receive, or access.
I also used to have a big magazine addiction! I believe I was up to about 8 subscriptions at one time. Then I noticed the quality of the paper was declining, and that made a difference to me. Martha Stewart’s Living still uses the better quality paper, and I love leafing through it every month. I have looked at some of the digital magazine offerings from my library, very nice feature.
I work in a library, and can tell you that print magazines are going through a tremendous shift in recent years. Some titles are changing publishing frequency (Entertainment Weekly became a monthly mag), combining titles, or even ceasing publication altogether. Others are moving completely online. The physical magazines that my library carries has diminished a lot, and will likely continue in that vein. That’s tough for patrons who like to browse the physical format, but I’m really glad we can offer the electronic version on Libby now.
@Karen: I just got a notice from Better Homes & Gardens that my print subscription is turning into a digital one–how am I supposed to make my collages and vision boards now?! And I already have access to digital BH&G through my library. Which is cool, but there’s nothing like print! (I work in a library, too!)
I rely on Pressreader for access to my beloved DNA (long-running Australian magazine targeted to gay men with a mix of news and service pieces on global LGBT issues, arts coverage, and photo shoots ranging from fashion to nudes) now that my local bookstore doesn’t stock it anymore. (I just use the web version with library access, or you can see if you’re in a Pressreader hotspot area that does require login.) The San Francisco system also has Kono, which has Japanese and Chinese magazines (maybe Korean too?)…none in English that I’ve seen, but the web interface is easy and the fashion magazines are fun to browse.
The Pressreader hotspots don’t require login, I meant to type…sheesh, sorry!
I love the magazines in libby! I couldn’t believe it seemed like every magazine in the world was free. Another tip: you can set a reminder for when a new issue is released to check out. It’s like having a subscription! Theres a magazine for everything, my recent favorite is Modern Cat.
I do still subscribe to a handful of print magazines. A couple of indies and I get People in my mailbox every week. Singlehandledly holding up the millenial print magazine market over here.