Print Industry Declines, Publications Move Towards the Web

Kalamazoo College Communications is going online.

For decades, K College has maintained a print magazine for alumni and parents of current students named after the school motto, Lux Esto, which reaches over 15,000 households in the U.S. and around the world. But, according to Jeffrey Palmer, Media Relations Manager for K, a new college online magazine called Be Light has stolen the show in communications with alumni and parents since its launch in 2007. Lux Esto is now published only three times a year, while a new issue of Be Light comes out every two months, reaching 10,000 alumni and parents. The online magazine has been so well received that the summer 2009 issue of Lux Esto was reduced to a mere four pages.

The online magazine is very popular within the college’s communications department also, because without the need to print and deliver a paper magazine, the stories do not have to be prepared as far in advance and the publication is much cheaper. And Be Light is not K’s only foray onto the Web. There is a K College Facebook page, which celebrated the addition of its 1000th friend last spring. Palmer is excited about its potential, because it is generating “more and more comments." Students and alumni can now also follow K College on Twitter, and more stories than ever are put up on the college website.

Beyond this, the college has more online changes in the works. According to Palmer, the college administration is working on a “new strategic marketing plan” with heavy emphasis on online outreach. The college is investigating the marketing and communications practices of its fellow liberal arts colleges to develop the most effective plan for K. The plan in the works relies on the cooperation of all members of the administration, especially the members of the crucial admissions and communications departments.

Despite the emphasis on electronic outreach, however, the college does not plan on eliminating paper communications from its repertoire. The generation gap—the large group of older alumni who do not have e-mail addresses and still request paper communications from the college—is one of the most important reasons for the decision, according to Palmer. Maintaining a mix of paper and electronic communications will allow the college the broadest reach possible.

Additionally, The Index has also begun a shift towards online publication. Since last year, the paper has maintained a website (kzooindex.com) as a supplement to the printed version distributed each week, and there are tentative plans for The Index’s further extension on the internet. The newspaper has created a Twitter account (kzoo_index), and a facebook group and a possible blog are in the works for release later.

In this respect, K’s newspaper lags behind that of Western Michigan University. According to Alex Sposito, Advertising Manager for the Western Herald, WMU’s paper, which was formerly published every day, is “becoming more eco-friendly by eliminating 2 issues a week and drawing more readers to [its] Web site.”

Furthermore, Sposito “invisions [sic] the Western Herald will be solely web based” in the next few years, a change not in the works for the Index. Drawing advertising revenue online, a difficult conundrum for many newspapers around the country, has not proved insurmountable for the Western Herald. Sposito stated that the Western Herald “is…drawing more and more clients wanting information about advertising on the web.”

This bodes well for online expansion of the Index, and provides hope that while paper communications may fade into memory as the century progresses, the printed newspapers in decline today may yet become the online publications of tomorrow.