Basel City Book goes virtual - no more printed edition in 2017
In the future, the Basel City Book will no longer fill the walls of books: the publisher Christoph Merian Foundation (CMS) is putting the annual contemporary history document on the Internet for free.
The 2015 edition published last year was the last in printed form. Since 1879, the Stadtbuch, once launched as the "Basel Yearbook," had been a treasure trove of current stories, portraits and visions. But because sales slumped and in the end barely 500 copies were sold, CMS went off the books. Now the city book is going online, linked to a comprehensive archive.
As an "actual online platform", the city book will offer access to dossiers in words and pictures, sound and film from the beginning of May, as CMS announced on Monday. The 41,000 printed pages of all 136 previous volumes will also be accessible digitally. The Basel Chronicle, which has been kept since 1882, is integrated, as are radio and newspaper files.
CMS sees the advertising-free service as a public service, since the online city book will hardly cost less than the printed edition in the future, as a spokesperson said.
Each year, CMS plans to publish its own texts on about twelve topics, which is only slightly less than the book's current total of about 250,000 characters. CMS has carried the city book since 1973 - when it was on the brink of extinction. Its annual report shows an operating contribution of 309,000 francs for the online city book for 2017/2018. Added to this is 210,000 francs as an investment for the change. The paradigm shift should help the publication reach a significantly larger audience. (SDA)
Image: Merianverlag.ch
