County Library Releases New Magazine Service for Electronic Devices

Baltimore County Public Library debuted a new free service in late December that offers instant access to more than 100 magazine titles on electronic devices.

Interested patrons can sign up for Zinio through the library's website, according to a news release. The service is available 24 hours a day, and includes a range of selections such as National Geographic, Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone.

The magazines are accessible to an unlimited number of people, which means no wait time.

"Unlike the physical copies you find in our branches, every BCPL customer who wants to look at these magazines can do it at the same time whenever they want," Jamie Watson, the library's collection development coordinator, said in the release.

Zinio is compatible with Macs, PCs, Androids, iPhones, iPads and other tablet devices, but not Kindle or Nook devices, according to library officials.

The library is also offering a new service for those interested in physical magazines. Patrons can now use BCPL's catalog to look up specific titles and see which library branches have those issues, and how many of each magazine is available before coming to the location.

The library unveiled a new e-book service called 3M Cloud Library in September 2012. This service now provides about 5,000 titles.