This announcement from the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) is of great interest to anyone with an Alberta public library card.

Alberta’s magazine publishing industry has joined forces with the province’s book publishers to expand the Read Alberta eBooks project, launched in 2017, to include digital editions of dozens of the province’s world-class magazines.

The Read Alberta Collection now includes 42 diverse eMagazine titles, in addition to the existing digital collection of more than 2,000 Alberta-published eBooks.

The project has grown through a partnership between AMPA and the Public Library Services Branch (PLSB) of Alberta Municipal Affairs. With an initial investment of $50,000, this expansion will increase readers’ access to a broader range of Alberta-created content.

And yes, this means that if you happen to be in Alberta, as of October 24, 2022, you can read a free digital issue of On Spec, beginning with the issues published in 2022. See this link for further details. 

On Spec is still available for sale  in print and in digital formats through our distributor, Weightless Books, but this gives us a bigger presence in our home province, and we are certainly grateful to the Department of Municipal Affairs for the funding opportunity.