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THE LAST LAUGH:
WIHE Evolves in Today's New World of Publishing

Although we’re a little foggy on its economics, WIHE has been taking a series of baby steps into today’s new world of publishing. It’s all happening on the Internet through our Web site at: www.wihe.com

All digital, all the time

Have you ever had these things happen to your printed issues, as our subscribers have reported?

• They often arrive long after the first of the month?
• They look like someone had already read them?
• Those shared with colleagues never come back?
• When returned, some pages are stuck together?
• Issues get soaked when the cat spills your drink?

To solve these and other problems, you can now easily arrange to receive WIHE entirely online every month. Starting with this January issue, each whole issue is now available in a digital format, complete with flipping pages with sound, searchable and archived.

To access it, go to our Web site at www.wihe.com and click on Subscriber, then follow the prompts to register so you can access the monthly issues. Subscriptions to only the online version will cost less than half that to the printed version.

Our online version offers these enhancements:

Color—Photos of people, ads and other info can appear online in the full spectrum of color, not just teal and black.

Expanded job search boards—Since more than half of you admit to subscribing mostly to read the want ads, we’ve brainstormed more options for helping you and potential employers to communicate better.

A click of the mouse could offer you more info about a job, that might include: a brief interview with the search committee chair or recruitment consultant describing what they’re really seeking in a candidate; a faculty member or administrator describing why she likes working there; iconic views of the campus, and whatever else might be useful.

Expanded editorial—Another click might bring interviews with newsmakers, games, insights.

Satisfaction of going green: You’ll be saving trees, wearand- tear on postal carriers and eventually space in a landfi ll, even if you now save your printed issues in binders.

Your personal choices

Technology now offers print-on-demand capabilities, so soon you’ll be able to select your own topics of interest. We’ll assemble a digital booklet of the best of Women in Higher Education by subject: dozens of relevant articles on whatever hot issues trip your trigger: athletics to adjuncts, women’s leadership, heartwarming stories of how and why today’s women leaders have advanced.

Centralized purchasing—You’ll soon be able to order all the books we review in the issue plus plenty of others through a scam our director of operations is hatching. It will also help keep our local feminist bookstore in business.

Social networking

Today’s technology has made news available 24/7 and information available at one’s fi ngertips through smartphones and other devices.

To use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about WIHE via the Internet, we’ve contracted with P.F. Zenke, a 26-year-old doctoral student in higher education leadership at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Our self-selected “followers” now receive short daily news blasts on topics related to women in higher education, like a daily dose of Newswatch items in one sentence. Since tweets are limited to only 140 characters, they also direct followers to the news source.

By December 21 a total of 3,175 “followers” had checked in with WIHE on Twitter, almost half the number (6,468) recorded for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Last week was our best ever, with an average of more than 100 people per day clicking on the articles we suggest,” Zenke said.

An additional 59 “fans” (90% female) follow us on our new Facebook entry. The largest category is females aged 35–44, while the smallest is males the same age.

WIHE is now among eight news sources on education on a list curated by New York Times journalist Jacques Steinberg. We’ve come a long way from the Gutenberg press to the Internet as a way to spread news, information, culture and change. Today’s economic climate has forced virtually every national publication to either establish an online presence to supplement the print version, go to publishing only online, or go out of business. We’ve chosen the first option.

We’re using technology to enlighten, encourage empower and enrage a new demographic of women on campus to join with us in the WIHE network. We’d love your online feedback on whether our new efforts to help women connect are worthwhile to you.

With the support of our new followers and fans, together we’ll reach a critical mass in the trenches and at the top on campus… and help women in the academy to get the last laugh.

Mary Dee Wenniger, Editor and Publisher

Wenniger, Mary Dee. (2010, January). The Last Laugh: WIHE Evolves in Today's New World of Publishing. Women in Higher Education, 19(1), p. 28.