Editor's Letter by Dan Landrum
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want you to know that I hear you loud and clear. What am I hearing? Over and over, the message from our readers is they don’t want Dulcimer Players News magazine to abandon its print format. To be clear, we have no such plans. It’s hard to ignore the news about the news though. It is common knowledge that many newspapers and news magazines are closing their doors permanently. The news business in general is finding it hard to compete with internet based information sources. The story that isn’t being told is that while internet usage continues to grow, so does magazine readership. During the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.
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The internet tumbles waves of ever changing information our way. It is best experienced by surfing. We surf the internet. Surfing can be fun, and the pushy water can take you unexpected places. Sometimes though, we don’t want to surf. We want to float. Magazines are for floating. When you kick back with a magazine devoted to a particular subject that interests you, an immersion takes place. It is more relaxing than exilarating. We regularly hear from people who’ve kept every single Dulcimer Players News. They’re like old friends. The internet doesn’t mean the death of the printed word any more than the birth of TV didn’t kill movies, and telephones didn’t stop people from getting together for casual conversation. A seemingly insurmountable problem in this electonic age is that while yes, there’s a constant flow of new
entertainment, news, and social networking sources, they all drive us back to staring at a screen. I think we can only take so much of this. We need books, magazines, walks in the woods with real friends, perhaps even holding hands, to maintain sanity. Using the computer feels like work. Reading a magazine feels like relaxation. There aren’t many jobs left that don’t require nearly constant computer usage. Even though the product you hold in your hands now is paper and ink, every inch of it was produced by a human being sitting in front of a computer. So at the end of the day, if I want to read a story, or learn a song, or hang out with a friend, I’d rather there not be a computer involved. So, why am I constantly pushing people interested in dulcimers toward www.everythingdulcimer.com? It’s very simple: A magazine that doesn’t have