Content area
Full Text
The periodical literature represents the digital publishing and information professional's basic source for CD-ROM news, editorial comment, new product announcements, hardware and software reviews, book and disc reviews, surveys, opinion, how-to articles, interviews, company profiles, advertising, and upcoming event notices. And if that's not enough, some periodicals even carry humor columns and cartoons.
Some of the content and subject matter covered by periodicals is available online through Internet and CompuServe and other services. While often more timely, online is also often more expensive, normally more difficult to get at, and usually without solid editorial expertise behind its content or presentation and, of course, without the pictures.
Magazines tend to be less current than online sources of similar information not merely because of the inherent nature of print being a relatively antiquated (but obviously persistent and still useful) medium that requires more lead time for printing and distribution, but primarily because an army of expert editors, designers, and authors are putting a lot of solid and careful work into the content. A nonmoderated Usenet newsgroup or Internet listserv simply does not supply the same quality of information, or in such an organized and accessible form. Many may agree with Raymond Kurzweill that the death of the printed book is imminent within this decade, but when it comes to magazines, a more conservative view may be in order.
Speculation about the future of magazines aside, today's professional significantly involved with CD-ROM or CD-ROM-related products has to stay abreast of developments and have access to solid information, news, and review literature. The principal place to get that is in the abundant periodical literature now available. Of course, magazines aren't the only periodical literature around. There are, indeed, many different types of periodicals, ranging from fax "dailies" and online "news" services, to weekly or monthly newsletters, annual or even occasional reports, directories, and unintentionally never-to-be-repeated works.
The history of CD-ROM-oriented magazines is littered with publications that have come and gone, even to the point that many long-time industry participants may not even remember some of them. Looking back to the 1980s, one might recall CD-ROM Review, CD-ROM Lab Report, CD-ROM Shopper's Guide, CD-ROM EndUser, and the premier issue-only DISC. (Another magazine, /ROM, was announced in the early 1990s and...