So Long, AJC!

As of April 1, local readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will no longer find their newspaper for sale at the usual convenience store, coin box, or other outlet.

In a February 15 letter to readers, AJC publisher John Mellott announced the pullback of the paper’s distribution area to 73 counties, mostly in Georgia, centered around the metro Atlanta area. The AJC daily print edition will no longer be available in such Georgia cities as Augusta, Columbus, and Savannah, and it will be completely withdrawn from the states of Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina. Readers in those respective markets must place mail subscriptions in order to read the print edition, or perhaps visit a local library which maintains a subscription.

(Your USCA Library offers the Sunday edition in hard copy.)

What once was the major regional newspaper covering the Southeastern United States – - its longtime motto being “we cover Dixie like the dew” – - thus becomes a much more local enterprise.

Along with the distribution cutback, the publisher also announced workforce reductions, a realignment of printing facilities, and a major refocusing toward the AJC’s digital edition.

What is going on with the printed newspaper business? Even the publisher of the New York Times recently stated, “I don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years.” Readership is dropping, as is advertising revenue. Critically important classified ad income is especially down, as the classifieds transition to the internet. The drop off has been cushioned to a degree by an uptick in readership of online newspaper editions. The Newspaper Association of America reports that online newspaper visits jumped by nearly one third between 2005 and 2006. But the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in 2006 estimated that only 14% of newspaper readers ever view an online version. And overall daily newspaper readership has dropped during the last decade, according to Pew, from 50%of the public reading a print newspaper, to 43% today for both print and online readers combined.

And where else does the public go for its news and information needs? The aforementioned Pew Study reports that 54% watch local TV news (down from 77% in 1993), 34% watch cable TV news(about the same as the earliest figure available, 33% in 2002), and 28% view nightly network news (way down from 60% in 1993.) Radio news listenership dropped to 40% in 2006 (down from 47% in1994), and online news visits rose to 31% from 2% in 1995. Sad to say, but according to Pew, 19%of Americans in 2006 received no daily news from any source at all, and that is up from 10% in 1994.

And so, we bid farewell to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as it makes its retreat from the outlying territories. The AJC’s long 138-year history and 9 Pulitzer prizes attest to its significant role in the story of Southern print journalism. However, there has never been a guarantee that newsprint will remain the chosen format. Friend, when was the last time you stopped at the local newsstand for your daily clay tablet, papyrus scroll, or parchment page?

The Pew Research Center for the People and Press released its biennial news consumption research study in 2006. It can be found online at:

             http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=282

Posted by Tom Hobbs, Reference Librarian, USC Aiken Library TomHo@usca.edu

April is National Poetry Month

Donald Hall is the 2006 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut; received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and another bachelor’s in literature from Oxford University. He has published 15 books of poetry, including his latest, White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006. He has also written 20 books of prose, children’s books and plays. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for his poetry book “The One Day” (1988).

Marjory Wentworth is South Carolina’s poet laureate.

A Few Tweaks Make Word Processing Less of a Pain

I ran into a great blog post over at the wonderful site LifeHacker.Com I just had to share. It has several quick tips on how to make life with MS Word more productive and enjoyable. For example, the tip on how to make Word stop automatically hyperlinking email addresses and urls made my day.

The most intriguing tip of all is the last one in the post. The author recommends ditching Word altogether and using AbiWord, OpenOffice.Org, Zoho Writer, or Google Docs instead — all of which are full featured and free alternatives.

Let It In! Sunshine Week 2007

Let’s support advocates of free access to government information as they observe Sunshine Week, March 11 – 17. The annual celebration which includes Freedom of Information Day on Friday, March 16, is dedicated to dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Led by the National Society of Newspaper Editors, Sunshine Week underscores the public’s right to know what its government is doing and why.

According to a 2007 survey of 1008 adults commissioned by the ASNE for Sunshine Week, 69% of respondents held the view that our federal government is either “somewhat secretive” or “very secretive” and engages in the monitoring of telephone conversations or opens private mail without court permission. Only 25% believed the federal government to be “very open” or “somewhat open.” About 6% were undecided. Visit the Sunshine Week website for full information and links to other resources.

Freedom of Information Day is observed annually on or near March 16, the birthday of James Madison, who is widely credited as the Father of the Constitution and foremost advocate of openness in government, according to a website maintained by the American Library Association.

Free and open access to government information – Let that sunshine in! Further information on Sunshine Week is at

http://www.sunshineweek.org/

Further information on Freedom of Information Day is at

http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/freedomofinfo/freedominformation.htm#intro

Posted by Tom Hobbs, Reference Librarian, USC Aiken Library