PCC faculty, students, and staff can access select digital magazines using Flipster. Flipster is a next-generation digital newsstand that allows people to browse digital versions of the latest issues of popular magazines. Magazines can be downloaded to mobile devices for offline reading anytime, anywhere.
View digitized versions of select magazines: National Geographic, Entrepreneur, Popular Mechanics, and Consumer Reports.
Searching within Flipster is a bit clunky in that you must open an individual magazine first before you can search the issues of that one magazine. There is currently not a way to search all of the magazines in our subscription of Flipster all at once. Also keep in mind that Flipster does not include all back issues. For example, the National Geographic has been in publication since 1888, but Flipster only provides access back through March 2017. We also have access to National Geographic articles in the database called Academic Search Complete. It provides full text for articles from 1995 up until 2021 (which changes periodically).
We have purchased access to the following magazines: Consumer Reports, National Geographic, Entrepreneur, and Popular Mechanics.
iOS App
To download the free Flipster app, search the iTunes app store for Flipster - Digital Magazines. The Flipster App requires iOS 10.0+.
Android App
To download the free Flipster app, search the Google Play store for Flipster - Digital Magazines.
Flipster does not typically provide access to an entire run of back issues. More back issues may be available within one of our other subscription databases.
To access back issues in your desktop or mobile web browser:
To access back issues in the mobile app:
With Flipster, all you have to do is navigate to the page in the issue where you want to go when the link is clicked. The link in the browser address bar already includes all of the info needed for that link to work. The next time you click the link, you will be prompted to log in with myPittCC, but after that you will go directly to the page within that issue that you originally visited when you copied the link. Our Database Links page includes info about linking to Flipster articles.
To download the iOS or Android apps, search for Flipster - Digital Magazines in the iTunes or Google Play stores.
Using your mobile browser, you can access Flipster and read magazines from your mobile device (internet and/or data required). You will be prompted to enter your myPittCC username and password to access Flipster.
From a desktop web browser, open a magazine. Once the magazine is open, click the Search icon in the top right corner. You can then choose to search the current issue or all issues of that magazine.
Printing is available when reading a magazine if the publisher of the magazine has allowed it. The print icon is located in the top right corner of the screen when a magazine is open. Print options are determined by the publisher. You may be able to print a single page, a range of pages, or none at all. If a publisher (ex. National Geographic) does not allow printing, the printer icon will be grayed out.
Each magazine has its own subscription and since this is a new service, we have chosen to start small and see how people like this format. If you have questions about what other magazines are available for purchase, please contact Leigh Russell, PCC Library Director (lmrussell086@my.pittcc.edu).
Flipster is an EBSCO product and they provide VPATs to their products online. Under Flipster, there are three VPATS. One each for web, Android, and iPhone access.