Magazines for HS Library

[Tiff E.]

Hey all, I recently started working as a high school librarian for a Catholic school with around 800 students. The only magazines we are getting are Sports Illustrated and Newsweek! I am definitely going to order TIME, Discover, and Scientific American. After that, I am not sure what to get.

What magazines do you subscribe to?

Are there any must-haves that I am missing?

What do your students read the most?

Are you finding that you are subscribing to magazines less as you use databases more?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Wendy Larson]

Tiff: Popular Science and Popular Mechanics are good. We also have Latina which we get through a gift from a local business and a Manga magazine as well as hunting, fishing, and motorcycle magazines and the usual news magazines you mention (and Sports Illustrated.) These are only a few samples of our titles. Wendy Larson, Farmington High School, Farmington, MN.

[Emily Auerswald]

Because we have access to a couple of databases that are good for research (and, actually, more useful - as we don't have an index for our print subs) I just subscribe to some magazines that folks might use for general interest reading:

Outside
Guitar Player (that's pretty popular)
Ceramics
ArtNews
Smithsonian
Nat'l Geographic
Astronomy (that was a teacher request)
Sky & Telescope (another request)
New Yorker
SI
Newsweek

I know there are more, but I am out of the office and can't think of them right now! We also get a couple of titles that are geared towards teachers, as well as two daily local newspapers.

[Joanie Proske]

Tiff,
I subscribe to a number of magazines (which are located next to some comfortable couches) and have a system with plastic covers so that students can sign out these magazines as well. Helps circ stats and students often want to finish reading articles they have started.

Sports Illustrated is popular and so are Car and Driver, Snowboard, Shonen-Jump, Biking, Elle, Seventeen, etc.
I've also ordered Woodwork (or is it Woodworking?) which is heavily used by the woodwork classes for project ideas (we save all the back issues) for the teacher.

What I did was survey my students and ask them what magazines they wanted to read in the library. Then I based my order upon their requests. I find that Time and Newsweek are seldom read and need lots of promotion. Hope this helps you. Joanie

[Rose Luna]

Could you please tell me more about how you use plastic covers to have students sign magazines out? We have barcodes on our books, but not on our magazines. The students still sign magazines out by filling out a card. I would love to just zap them out and have them included in our circ stats. I did not think barcoding every magazine was necessarily the best solution, so I would be interested in hearing how others do this.

Rose

[Julie Udy]

I am at a high school library and have all my magazines barcoding with basic information. I have a student aide catalog the title, the date, indicate it is a magazine, and give it a price along with the barcode. it is simple and easy to do. I don't have any extra work dealing with it. When i discard the magazines, i cut the barcodes off and recycle them onto new magazines. It is easier than a book. I have about 25 magazines I subscribe to that are both weekly and monthly.

[Ronda Scroggins]

Mine are very similar to Joanie's with the addition of Shojo Beat. However, the biggest draw and one I have to keep for several years because back issues get checked out as a set for class projects is Consumer Reports.

[Alan]

Hello All

I really need some advice on this one too
I'm new to International schools and Asia.
Our magazine collection is too mature (lots of trade mags such as Smithsonian, New Scientist).
And it is too Americentric (too many US publications, not enough Internationalness).

I really need recommendations for educational mags for sciences, humanities, languages, etc (US or not). And some non-US options.

Thanks in advance.

Alan Jacques
British International School
HCMC, Vietnam

[Dana B]

Hi! I am also a librarian at a Catholic school and just ordered magazines. I have Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, but some fun ones like Road and Track (for the boys), Outside, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Seventeen. Since it is a Catholic School we also get Catholic Digest, Faith, and America.

For popular titles the Road and Track and ESPN are most used by the boys, although the news ones do seem to get an audience as well :)

Hope this helps!

[Jan Tunison]

In addition to the many popular titles listed below, my HS students also enjoy Rachel Ray's cooking magazine, Entertainment (also used by the film classes), and SPIN (music). My students rely heavily on databases for research, and especially enjoy the remote use and searchability. However, the print magazines are still widely read.

[June Keuhn]

Ebony would be a good addition. We also get Art News. Most of our magazines are by teacher request.

[Amy Christman]

I came to a district that spent way too much on magazines that kids weren't reading. While I still have some teacher selected titles, I decided to dump a bunch of the very subject specific and start getting titles kids would read. I sent a message to state's list serv asking for favorite titles kids like and this is what I was able to compile in addition to many of the standard titles:

Seventeen
Transworld Skateboarding
People
ESPN
Sports Illustrated (swiping the swimsuit issue of course )
Shonen Jump
Transworld series
Star
Motor Trend
Hot Rod
Wired

I have also decided to sign up for:
Entertainment Weekly
Fast Company
New Yorker
Popular Science
Teen Vogue

[Laura Turowski]

Hi Tiff-

I am also starting out at a Catholic High School this year!  We have quite the list of subscriptions which cover religion, science, entertainment, and sports.

America (Catholic Weekly), American Heritage, American History, Christian Century, Commonweal, Consumer Reports, Discover, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, Men's Journal, Nat Geo, Natural History, New Yorker, Newsweek, People, People Style Watch, Popular Science, Psychology Today, Real Simple, Runners World, Science News, Scientific American, Seventeen, Shakespeare Quarterly, Sports Illustrated, Teen Vogue, Time, Vanity Fair, Washingtonian (Local Magazine for DC area), and Wired.

It is quite the list and I will probably end a few subscriptions this year to help the budget.  We subscribe through EBSCO. 

The only magazines that are used regularly are the entertainment ones - People, Teen Vogue, and anything sports.  The science department will come in sometimes and read Discover or Popular Science.  The religious magazines are almost never picked up - I think some teachers have their own subscriptions.  Shakespeare Quarterly is used by the AP English classes as it is required by their teacher.

Hope this helps!

Laura