Mary Jane Wilkie
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read
Photo by Paul Calescu

DIGITAL PUBLIC READING ROOM: WHY NOT?

For the work I do, and in response to interesting Facebook posts, I often have occasion to follow links to articles in various newspapers and magazines. Sometimes I am allowed access to the full piece, but sometimes not. When the latter, the gate is usually guarded by subscription to that publication. My work as an independent contractor entails research, and unfortunately, I can’t subscribe to a wide array of sources merely to have access to a given source only occasionally.

I understand that news purveyors must make money, so I suggest a new model: the digital public reading room. This would be the modern-day equivalent of a room where readers could peruse and read articles from a variety of newspapers and magazines, with more content than any one library could offer.

Conceivable designs could be:

· For a yearly membership fee, users would have access to all newspapers and magazines at any time.

· Users could have an account in a system that charges them, e.g., a few pennies to skim an article, and a few more to read the full piece.

· A combination of the above two.

· Summaries of articles (i.e., abstracts) available for no charge, and a small fee for accessing the entire piece.

· Popular blogs could be a subset.

· Publications from other nations would be an interesting expansion.

I am certain there are financial geniuses who could figure out a reasonable charge for any of these models, and after a trial year or so, the charge could be evaluated for its viability and its fairness to suppliers and users.

In short, subscribing to only one or a few publications is the old model. We need a new one. We have seen changes in other industries: Zipcar offered something users wanted, not available through the existing models. Uber did likewise, and now retail merchandisers are exploring new ways of selling. The purveyors of news should get on board. Were I not in the latter stages of my career, I myself would explore starting such a business. Or maybe someone is already doing this, feeling as confident as I do about the potential to make money with models that give customers what they want.

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