PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University Libraries is offering a tablet-based app for iPads and certain Android devices so users can browse and access scholarly journal articles from the libraries’ holdings.

BrowZine pulls articles from databases into complete journals, then arranges them by subject on a library-style virtual newsstand. To download the app, visit http://libguides.wsulibs.wsu.edu/browzine.

WSU Libraries is piloting the BrowZine subscription for a year, and feedback is welcome. Please send comments to oenglish@wsu.edu.

With BrowZine, users can scan tables of contents and open articles for reading and markup in a preferred PDF reader such as GoodReader, iAnnotate or PDF Expert, said WSU social sciences librarian Lorena O’English. Users can automatically send articles or article information to other places, including Dropbox, and create a bookshelf of journals and individual articles to save for easy access.

“You could call this an academic version of magazine-style apps, like Flipboard or Google Currents,” she said. “Like Flipboard, BrowZine pulls content from other sources and makes it easier for the user to work with.”

Not all journals available through WSU Libraries are in BrowZine, but Third Iron, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company that owns the app, is working with academic publishers to expand BrowZine’s offerings, O’English said.