Alaska Geographic magazine ends 30-year run
ANCHORAGE - After three decades of publication, Alaska Geographic is calling it quits.
A dwindling subscriber base has forced the Anchorage nonprofit outfit that publishes the quarterly publication to halt production.
The glossy publications have been available on a subscription basis for society members. Individual issues are sold in bookstores and specialty shops as well.
The number of subscribers was nearly 15,000 in the publication's early days, but has declined over the years, bottoming out at about 3,500 now.
At the same time, the price of an annual subscription has risen to $49 from about $20, said Kathy Doogan, co-director of the Alaska Geographic Society, the educational organization that has published the magazine since the early 1970s.
"It's just not economic for us to do anymore," Doogan told the Anchorage Daily News.
Founded by Alaska publishing pioneer Bob Henning, Alaska Geographic dominated its market niche for many years.
The 118 issues in the softbound series cover topics including Alaska's Native people and cultures, the aurora borealis and grizzly bears. Each contains articles and color photographs that examine and detail its subject.
"It was a unique publication for a long time," said Nancy Lesh, Alaskana librarian at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "There really wasn't a lot of competition."
Today there are more lower-cost alternative information sources, including the Internet. The magazine's format - devoting an entire issue to in-depth coverage of a single subject - also may have led to the decline in its readership, said Bruce Merrell, Alaska bibliographer at Loussac Library in Anchorage. People these days tend to want their information in "smaller bites," Merrell said.
But in some instances Alaska Geographic remains the only source of comprehensive information that some adventurers are looking for, said Lynn Dixon, co-owner of Cook Inlet Book Co. in downtown Anchorage.
At her bookstore, which carries an extensive line of Alaskana, sales of Alaska Geographic have increased in recent years, she said.
About 80 of the 118 titles Alaska Geographic has turned out are still in print, and the group plans to continue selling about 100,000 back issues through bookstores and specialty shops in Alaska and elsewhere, Doogan said.