Of Many Things

Our Christmas gift to subscribers this year is our new Web site. We are very excited about it and believe you will find it informative and useful. Come visit us at: www.americamagazine.org. On our Web pages, you will find practically everything that is currently printed in the paper edition of America. But because this is the Web, we have attempted to make the browsing experience interactive.

After you read an editorial or article, for example, you can immediately write a letter to the editor that can be posted on the site. You will also be able to read letters that have already been posted in response to a particular item in the magazine. We will be able to publish many more letters on our Web site than we can possibly print in our magazine.

If you want to purchase a book reviewed in our pages, you can click on a link at the end of the review that will take you directly to a listing of that book at Amazon.com. We encourage you to reach Amazon.com in this fashion, because if you do, Amazon.com will pay us a small commission on your purchase.

One of the attractive features of the Web version of the magazine is the archive, where you can search through past issues of America. Our site has the most recent issues, and we provide a link to another site with a database that goes back to 1992.

In addition, there are features on the America Web site that are not in the printed edition. For example, five days a week you will be able to get News Briefs, a daily summary of news from Catholic News Service.

You will also be able to purchase books from the Catholic Book Club online. The Catholic Book Club, as you know, is a book-of-the-month club offered by America. These books are real bargains. Not only are they sold below the publisher’s price, but if you buy online using a credit card, there is no shipping charge. You can also sign up for a digital newsletter that will be sent to you by e-mail each month to inform you of the book club’s newest selection.

Finally, if you are not yet a subscriber, you can order a subscription online using a credit card. And if you are already a subscriber, you can change your postal address or start a (Christmas) gift subscription for someone else online.

That is the good news. The bad news is that the full content of these pages is available only to subscribers to our print edition. We wish we could make everything available to everyone at no cost, but if we did that, we would lose subscribers and not be able to pay our bills. In order to view the full text of items in the magazine you must log on as a subscriber.

We have tried to make this as simple as possible. First, make sure that you have handy a recent issue of America with your mailing label on it. Then go to our home page, www.americamagazine.org. On the home page you will see the cover of the most recent issue along with the table of contents and the first few lines of text of each item. Click on the item in the table of contents that you want to view. You will then be taken to a page with the message, To see the full text, you must be a subscriber. If you are a subscriber, click here to log in.

After you click, you will be taken to the log-on page, where you will be asked for your user name and password. The first time you do this, you are not yet a registered user, so click the box below OR and type in your account number, which you will find on your mailing label. Click Submit and give yourself a username and password. The next time you visit America’s site, enter these when required for access to the full text. (If you forget them, you can repeat the registration process, using your account number, and give yourself new ones.) After you have created a user name and password, you will be returned to America’s home page, from which you can then access the full text of items in the magazine.

Merry Christmas, and happy browsing.

This article appears in December 24 2001.