Cornell Alumni Magazine (CAM) has launched a free digital edition that won't replace the print magazine or its website, but is expected to broaden the publication's reach to a vast majority of Cornell's alumni. An iPad and iPhone version is expected to debut within a couple of weeks, and an Android version is in the works.

Currently, only about 24,000, or 12 percent, of Cornell's estimated 200,000 living alumni for which the university has addresses receive a print copy of the editorially independent magazine. Their subscriptions are paid through class dues.

The digital edition, created by the digital publishing company Texterity, is more than just an online view of the magazine's pages -- all links are live, pages and text can be enlarged for reading ease, indexes are available to easily jump to or flip through different sections, and the issue can be easily searched. Ads, appearing just as they do in the print magazine, also contain live links. Readers can easily share the issue or stories on social networking sites.

In the future, functions like embedded videos and customized ads based on where the reader is located will be added to the digital editions.

"We're all pretty psyched about this," said Jim Roberts '71, editor and publisher of CAM. "Very few alumni magazines are doing this, so far."

The new digital edition "feels much more like the magazine experience to me than anything else," he said.

Young alumni, used to doing nearly all their reading online, will welcome it as an option, and older alumni have been very responsive to the ability to change the size of the type in the digital edition for readability, he said.

"I think it looks glorious," said Richard Levine '62, chairman of the Cornell Alumni Association's magazine committee. "This will put the magazine in reach of about 80 percent of living alumni, at very modest cost to us." With CAM having put "all this effort into creating editorial content of real value," he said, we want "to get it to the audience for which it's intended."

The project was made possible through the efforts of an alumni task force led by Bill Howard '74 and financial support from Alumni Affairs and Development and University Communications. The Cornell Alumni Association gave the plan approval and the go-ahead early this year.

Tommy Bruce, vice president for university communications, said, "Taking the Cornell Alumni Magazine into the electronic space, including an iPad app, will usher in a new era where alumni across the world will be able to enjoy the work of a solid editorial team. Congratulations!"

The digital edition, which will exist in several versions across platforms, also helps Cornell meet its sustainability goals.

It will also give CAM an opportunity to evolve the magazine's website, Roberts said, by allowing it to be less "bound up in the chronology" of each print issue and to present stories, features and breaking news items in a more subject-organized way.

Registration isn't required to access the online edition; the link can be accessed from CAM's home page.