Student publication goes digital

            From a small, 25-page publication to a 100-page magazine, Scribendi has come a long way, and it’s coming even further with its first ever digital version this year.

            Scribendi is the Western Region Honors Council’s literary magazine. It is based out of the University of New Mexico and its staff consists of UNM honors students and a faculty advisor. It is an annual publication that publishes pieces of poetry, short fiction, essays and non-ficiton, photography, digital art and visual art. Last year the staff added music and film to the list of media categories. Scribendi receives around 500 submissions every year from around 200 different university honors programs in the western region of the U.S.  

            The current staff of Scribendi hopes that the digital version of the magazine will increase the audience of the magazine. It costs about $15,000 dollars to print Scribendi every year and each WRCH university receives only two copies of the magazine.

 “With a digital copy of the magazine, we could send the whole thing electronically, and students would have greater access to the magazine,” said Tracey Buckler, the current managing editor of Scribendi.

Going digital also means more time for Scribendi staff members. Student staff members take a two semester, 300-level honors class called The Publication Process. Buckler said that a solely digital publication would mean more time for the staff members to work on the magazine and to learn publication skills. Currently, the magazine has to be ready a month before the magazine’s release date. If the magazine were to only be published digitally, staff members would have an extra month to fine-tune the magazine.

As a class, a digital publication would mean more skills to learn.

“[A digital publication] would require slightly different skills of the staff, and it could help better prepare all the staff members for the evolving electronic world,” said Buckler.

Aesthetically, a digital publication will also benefit Scribendi. According to Buckler, a digital publication would allow for color on every single page, something that is too expensive for the magazine to do right now. It was also mean that the digital photography submissions would be able to be viewed in their original form.

Despite these benefits, even Buckler has her own reservations about the magazine only being published digitally. Publishing for print and publishing for the screen are completely different. The Scribendi staff is taught design elements and how to design layouts for a printed page. Though digital publications are a current trend, Buckler said that only recently have digital publications been seen as prestigious as print.

Personally, for Buckler, she’s happy to keep the magazine in print. She said that she is excited for a digital version of Scribendi that can spread awareness and increase the audience of the magazine, but she loves the printed version too. A digital version means “losing the solid feel of a printed magazine in your hand,” she said.

As for their current audience which consists of mainly of older faculty member, Bucker thinks that a printed version should be kept around a while longer.

These changes at Scribendi aren’t only affecting the student staff members and the magazine. Dr. Leslie Donovan, the faculty advisor of Scribendi announced this semester that she will be retiring from the magazine. Dr. Donovan explained her reasons for retiring in a statement that was published online. She said that due to the technological changes of the magazine and with her background being mainly in print publication, the magazine “will be better served by a new faculty [advisor] who knows digital formats and technologies better.”

Dr. Donvan has been the faculty advisor of Scribendi for the past 15 years. She helped grow the magazine from a 20-page publication to a 120-page publication. As faculty advisor she teaches the staff members how to use basic publishing programs like InDesign as well as typography and design techniques.

Before Dr. Donovan, Scribendi had three other faculty advisors and a different name. In 1985 Dr. Susan Kilgore and some undergraduate students put together the first undergraduate honor’s publication. It was known as the UNM Honors Review and was less than 25 pages long.

Dr. V.B. Price was the second faculty advisor and took over in 1990. This was the first year students received university credit for their work on the magazine and they received one credit for one semester of work.

The UNM Honors Review changed its name to Scribendi in 1994. Sharon Niederman took over for Dr. Price for the 1997 issue.  Now, student staff members received three credit hours a semester.

Dr. Donovan’s predecessor is Amaris Ketcham. Ketcham received her undergraduate degree from UNM and her MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. Ketcham is also a past staff member and past editor-in-chief of Scribendi. Dr. Donovan expressed her excitement about the new faculty advisor in an online post.

“I am thrilled and honored to be turning Scribendi over to someone so well qualified and perfectly attuned to the needs of this publication that means so much to me and to so many former contributors and staff members,” said Dr. Donovan.

Ketcham’s experience in digital publications includes being a graphic designer for The National Association of Agricultural Educators as well as working on many student publications at the Eastern Washington University.

Change happens gradually at Scribendi. The magazine has grown from a 25-page publication of mainly local honors students to a 120-page publication of honors students all over the western region. Last year two new mediums were introduced. This year a digital publication will be released. The magazine might have several more years as a print publication, but these recent changes seem to mean that even undergraduate publications are not impervious to the technological changes that are happening today.