BrowZine is a free app for Apple and Android tablet users. You connect it to Murphy Library, and it will help you keep up-to-date with the journals in your field. It’s a product of Third Iron, a group of library professionals, working mostly out of St. Paul, MN. I could tell they are library professionals because their user support was outstanding, as I discovered when I had a problem.
BrowZine’s main features:
- Consolidates across multiple databases
- Customizable – you choose the content and organize it as you wish
- Familiar “newsstand” organization
- Search multiple libraries (requires logging out of one and logging into another, in Settings) without losing anything
- Save articles to read later
- Export articles to other apps, including online storage like DropBox, research organizers like Zotero, and .pdf notation apps like Notability
- Share articles with colleagues via email or social media
- Request help from within the app and get outstanding service!
Here’s how to start using it: Download the app to your tablet. Start the app and select “University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse” from the drop-down menu. Enter your netID and password. Now, click on BrowZine Library at the bottom of the app, then choose either Subjects at the upper left or Titles at the upper right to search and select the journals you want to monitor. As you select a title, BrowZine allows you to select on which of its four “bookcases” you want that publication to show. You can label the “bookcases,” as well as each shelf, and delete journal titles using Edit, and reorganize titles simply by dragging them. Institution Info takes you directly to the Murphy website. Click on a journal title to see the title and authors of the articles in the most recent issue. Tap the title to see the article. Save the ones you want to read later, or export them, or share them. Click Available Issues to see the backlist. In Settings, add your public library or other research libraries, and choose whether and how you want to be notified about articles you haven’t yet seen. Awesome.
For busy academics, keeping up with research in your field is infinitely easier with BrowZine.
Please note that while BrowZine is a free app to users, Murphy Library does pay a yearly fee for this product. To learn more, see Third Iron’s introductory video
here and Murphy Library’s guide
here.
Submitted by Deb Hoskins, Department of Women’s,
Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning
