-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: New Life magazine from AOL -- Buddy Pennington
   Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 11:59:55 -0600
   From: David Faulkner <David.Faulkner@CI.AUSTIN.TX.US>

>>From The New York Times comes the following article. I did a little
research and found out that the magazine will only be available on the
newsstands and not on a subscription basis.

David Faulkner
Periodicals LA
Faulk Central Library
Austin Public Library System
Austin, Tx.
David.Faulkner@ci.austin.tx.us

The New York Times, Nov 5, 2001 pC8(L) col 04 (11 col in)

     Time Finds a New Role for Life In Special Issues and Hardcovers.
     (Business/Financial Desk)(MEDIA) David Handelman.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 The New York Times Company
Born in 1936, Life has already died twice: as a weekly in 1972, and as a
monthly in May 2000. But although a picture-driven magazine would seem
like an anachronism in the Internet age, Time Inc. appears to believe
that Life's heart is still beating.

This week, two new issues hit newsstands simultaneously: ''America's
Parade,'' a long-planned history of Macy's Thanksgiving Day ritual, and
''In the Land of the Free,'' a rapidly executed retrospective of the
Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath.

They represent Life's latest incarnation: as an ad-free, single-topic
''premium magazine'' -- 128 pages; perfect-bound; heavy, 100-pound
stock; a $9.95 cover price -- that will be published every six weeks.

Life did not survive as a monthly, said the editor, Robert Sullivan,
because ''its topic is the whole world, and that's a tough sell in a
niche-magazine age.''

Also, its baby-boomer readers ''weren't of interest to advertisers,''
Mr. Sullivan said.
Yet in 2000, the Life book ''Our Century in Pictures'' sold 675,000
copies despite a $60 cover price, which ''keyed us in to the strength of
the brand,'' said Life's general manager, Andrew Blau.

So the company tested the magazine with narrowly focused ''bookazines''
on topics like World War II and Pearl Harbor, which performed well. The
question, Mr. Blau acknowledged, ''is, can you do this beyond World War
II?''

Mr. Sullivan thinks so, and pointed to several exclusives in the issue
about the terrorist attacks, like photos inside the stairwell as people
were escaping the World Trade Center, and Joe McNally's Polaroid
portraits of survivors and rescue workers. He said that future issues,
drawing in part on Time Inc.'s archive of 10 million photographs, will
cover the space program, rock 'n' roll and Queen Elizabeth's coronation.

Issues that seem especially keepsakeworthy are being expanded into
hardcover books. ''In the Land of the Free'' is being published next
month by Little, Brown as ''One Nation,'' with a different cover (a
photomosaic by Robert Silvers of an American flag composed of portraits
of the tragedy's victims) and 64 additional pages of both photography
(like a 10-page portfolio by the war photographer James Nachtwey) and
essays (by David McCullough, James Bradley, Thomas Keneally and Melissa
Fay Greene).

In an odd twist, Life's book turns out to be more up-to-date than its
magazine: the anthrax outbreaks occurred after the newsstand version was
shipped but before the book was completed. So Mr. Sullivan changed the
section that in the magazine is titled ''Back to Life'' to ''The New
Normal.''

     -------- Original Message --------
     Subject: New Life magazine from AOL
     Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 10:58:04 -0600
     From: "MD_Buddy (Buddy Pennington)" <MD_Buddy@KCLIBRARY.ORG>

     Hi all,

     A couple of weeks ago I read a blurb that AOL was going to restart
     Life
     Magazine.  I have heard nothing else since then and was curious to
     know
     if
     any of you have the scoop on this.

     Buddy Pennington
     Document Delivery Librarian
     Kansas City Public Library
     md_buddy@kclibrary.org
     816-701-3552