College students will be able to access digitized publications from around the world starting in August, including many that can be incorporated into their course work, after the campus retailing industry teamed up with a digital content distributor to create an online newsstand stocked with 3,000 magazines and books.
The nonprofit National Association of College Stores (NACS), based in Ohio, announced July 12 that it would make the digital resources available through Zinio, a content provider that offers 75,000 publications in 24 languages. The online publications can be accessed through computers, iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices popular among college students.
NACS officials touted the digital newsstand as the first directed specifically at the college market. Officials did not release the number of campuses that would use the Zinio newsstand when it’s opened later this summer.
The newsstand will offer students access to the latest issues of the trendiest magazines, as well as literary classics such as Beowulf, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and more than 100 others. The classics and magazines are searchable through a browse feature on Zinio’s web site.
Any purchase made from the Zinio newsstand will be accessible on any device that has a Zinio application installed on it, officials said.
Mark Nelson, vice president of strategy and development for NACS Media Solutions, a subsidiary of NACS that launched the newsstand with Zinio, said the organization’s foray into providing digital content for students comes in response to the increased demand for web-based reading among college students…