The Paper Form

A frequent topic of posts here at Slaw and elsewhere in recent times has been the nature of print v. electronic publishing and what the future holds. It is a worthy topic that affects us all and fuels much discussion. In the midst of that I simply want to point out a publication that I find interesting in this information world, I’m not attaching special significance to it beyond the fact that it is interesting to point out. Grantland has been mentioned here at Slaw previously in the context of the Slaw feature You Might Like. Named for Grantland Rice, a prominent early 20th Century sportswriter, Grantland is a website or possibly more accurately on online magazine that is dedicated to long form writing or narrative journalism regarding sports and popular culture. While that may sound like a somewhat narrow focus, there is an eclectic group of columnists and contributors that delve into interesting topics and goes into areas of thought that you might not see elsewhere.

Grantland is an online forum that is born digital and has worked backwards, so-to-speak, to the point where it also publishes, in print, a quarterly edition which is intended to highlight some of the more notable pieces at the site over the past quarter. It is this born digital and then published in print significantly later that I find interesting. In this case the print form is being used as a review or perhaps sober-second-thought. I do not think that this is paradigm shift in the nature of publishing but it do find it interesting that it exists. The current quarterly is only the second issue, so I cannot ascertain whether the print venture has been a success or what it means, perhaps it is an exception that proves a rule but the existence of the print edition in this form is something to note.

Speaking of paper, today is a special day at the Schulich School of Law as it is the day we hand out special paper or parchment that takes at least three years to obtain. I just want to use this platform to wish our graduates the best. I know many of them and can attest that they will do well for themselves and represent the school well in their future endeavours. If you happen to be an alumnus or are just interested in convocation and a well done valedictory address you can find a web archive at this linked url.

Comments

  1. The Philanthropist is now an online journal about the law, policy and management of charitable and not for profit activities. It used to be a print publication but moved online a couple of years ago. (All the back issues from its creation in the early 1970s are online in PDF.)

    However, it occasionally publishes a print version. It did so to mark the Centre for Philanthropy’s National Summit on philanthropic issues last November. It also permits the download of an entire issue at a time, as well as reading any or all of the content online.

    So: the boundary between print and electronic is, as Mark says, porous and not fixed.