Magazines

The Ski Journal sports stunning action-oriented landscape photography, superb skiing-related visual art, and short, well-written articles about the various people and places that make skiing such a popular winter sport. Editor Galbraith refers to the magazine as a "coffee-table ski periodical" that appeals to both professional and amateur skiers. Judging by the outstanding quality of the premier issue, many nonskiers will enjoy perusing this as well. Two essentials from the premier issue include the well-known skiing photography of Carl Skoog and a profile of skier/artist Eric Pollard. For most public libraries.

For the harried, busy people who can scarcely find their bills amid the clutter, daily life often devolves into a series of barely averted minor disasters. With tips on how to organize the family car for long trips, make the most of space in a laundry room, and put together a successful yard sale, this magazine is exactly what the terminally disorganized need. Of special interest in the premier issue is editor Dorny's interview with professional organizer Peter Walsh, host of The Learning Channel's Clean Sweep. Organize belongs in most public libraries, large and small.

With realities such as soil degradation and climate change beginning to hit the American consumer where it hurts, mainstream environmental publications like Plenty are finding their niche audiences and then some. Plenty's take on reality certainly isn't radical; rather, it looks a lot like ordinary middle-class life, only greener. Whether the green movement will derive momentum from its dalliance with consumerism isn't clear, but the message is receiving massive airplay. While there are a number of magazines with a similar scope, Plenty receives high marks for style and presentation. For midsize to large public libraries.

In its earlier, quarterly incarnation, Minerva evolved into a well-respected, unique publication primarily from the editorial work of founder De Pauw. Newly redesigned after a short absence, it continues to present groundbreaking scholarly articles on the subject of women and war. The featured issue presents several outstanding essays—Mathers's look at servicewomen and their roles in the post-Soviet Russian army, Helena Grice's reexamination of the works of novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, and Mary Linn Wernet's study of the first female midshipmen in the U.S. Navy. Highly recommended for academic libraries.

The Journal of Information Ethics (JIE) is noteworthy for the currency of its subject. The perils of the corporate world's ability to market, package, and sell digital information as a consumer product are real and quite disturbing. Information can be altered to a particular authority's vision with ease, and conflicts of interest can arise in the high-stakes world of grant-funded academic research. While JIE is intended to appeal principally to academic librarians and university faculty and administrators, concerned laypersons shouldn't feel intimidated by its content. For most academic libraries and larger public libraries.

The renamed and redesigned Lapidary Journal is a real diamond in the rough. As the oldest and most reputable gem and jewelry-making magazine in the business, there wasn't much that needed to be improved with the original. However, Jewelry Artist's project articles are more illustrative and concise than its predecessor's, and, in general, the color photographs are more striking, e.g., the impressive images of different quartz varieties that complement Helen Serras-Herman's "Chalcedonies for Carving." The increased emphasis on the craft of jewelry-making should attract artists in public, academic, and special libraries.

As the flagship magazine of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Northern California, Shift concentrates on investigating the "frontiers of consciousness." Not a religious magazine, it deals with topics such as the philosophical problem of human intention, the ecological connections between human consciousness and the natural world, and the historical roots of the Hermetic sciences and philosophy. With its links to transpersonal psychology, meditation, metaphysics, and cosmology, Shift has a natural audience that seems to be scientific-minded freethinkers. Although it covers some interesting territory, it's not quite rigorous enough to appeal to academic readers. For larger public libraries.