Tommy Bruce, vice president for university communications, is announcing today major changes in the way the Cornell Chronicle delivers news to the campus and beyond.

Beginning in August, campus readers will receive a weekly e-newsletter delivered to their inboxes. In addition, a printer-friendly digest of the week's news will be available at Chronicle Online as a PDF every Friday. The digest will also be available as a print-on-demand newspaper.

On May 29, the Chronicle will publish its final weekly newspaper.

"These decisions are being taken as a way of building for the future," said Bruce. "I think we are in a very unique place, one in which the Chronicle is on the verge of leading the pack in some ways. It is a very exciting time."

The basis of these changes has been in the planning stages for nearly a year. In the summer of 2008, Chronicle editors held a meeting for University Communications leaders at which proposals for discontinuing the printed newspaper were advanced. Three things are converging, said Bruce. "We have budgetary constraints, a technological landscape change and Chronicle editors who have been thinking long and hard about these changes for the good of their own business. That is very rare. And I should mention that we are all aware of the need to reduce paper through the campus paperless initiative."

David Brand, Chronicle director, noted the increasingly important role that the well-established Chronicle Online will play in bringing campus news to a growing audience. In the second week of April alone, more than 1.5 million "hits" on stories were recorded on Chronicle Online, with more than 80,000 unique users. Brand said that many of the paper's features likely will continue online. These include the popular Essentials -- short items of interest on people, ideas and happenings -- which is already a blog at http://blogs.cornell.edu/theessentials/. Also continuing online will be the weekly Focus pages, presenting features on learning and teaching, alumni, Cornell activities in New York City, social sciences, international initiatives and technology news. Chronicle Online will also continue coverage of campus events, features on programs and people, staff-related news (WorkLife), opinion pieces (Perspectives), photo essays and letters to the editor.

Several of these feature pages, he said, will be included in the weekly print-on-demand digest.

Readers will be able to download the digest to their computers or print it on 8½-by-11-inch paper. For those on campus requiring copies of the Chronicle for distribution, Cornell Digital Print Services will offer a print-on-demand and delivery service with online ordering. The print-on-demand options for the Chronicle are still being worked out, but visit http://www.purchasing.cornell.edu/Printing.cfm to see ordering options for Digital Print Services and other Cornell preferred copy service providers.

The weekly e-newsletter will highlight the week's top stories, upcoming events, Big Red home games, information for staff and Cornellians in the news.

One thing that will not change is the Chronicle's broad campus coverage, said Bruce. "The Chronicle offers the best compilation of what is going on at Cornell University at any given time. We are going to report the great work of this campus just as the Chronicle has been doing and will continue to do," he said.

Both the weekly digest and the e-mail newsletter will be produced by Cornell Chronicle staff members, with summaries and links to that week's online articles, said Karen Walters, assistant director of the Cornell Chronicle office. She noted that the Chronicle already sends a weekly digest of news to subscribers and a monthly e-News to 180,000 alumni, parents and friends around the globe. "The new e-mail newsletter will add heft to our growing delivery of Cornell news via the Internet," she said.

The Chronicle began as a weekly newspaper delivered to campus newsstands 40 years ago. Last year the Chronicle published 32 12- and 16-page newspapers with a print run of about 11,000 copies an issue. The move to go exclusively online will save more than 19 tons of paper a year. A paperless Chronicle will also support Cornell President David Skorton's commitment to reduce university operating costs and to move toward a paperless campus.

Cornell Chronicle staff will continue publishing the quarterly feature magazine Ezra in print and online, in collaboration with the Division of Alumni Affairs and Development.