Being an organisation for islanders, we must admit having a soft spot for island journals. Not the glossy magazines marketing islands as a place to visit, nor daily (or almost daily) newspapers covering crime, local debate and family affairs. No, our love is for copious, fact-filled periodicals with percipient descriptions of islands as a place to live and work, the trades and industries of the islanders, the deep roots of islandness and the struggle to survive as tiny societies in the modern world.

Here are seven examples, from France, Australia, Scotland, Denmark, Canada, Finland and Sweden:

ID-Îles: the magazine of initiatives and development in the French western islands (lLes îles du Ponant), containing most interesting portraits of the islands where the sun settles. The magazine is a monthly television broadcast 26 minutes long, an internet site http://www.id-iles.fr/le-projet-id-îles/id-îles-magazine/, and a monthly chronicle. You can follow ID-Îles on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/ID-îles-Magazine-1036287096423212/?fref=ts.

ISJ-COVER-Nov 

There used to be a printed French journal called Î-liens but it ceased to exist in September, 2013.

Shima is an Australian peer-refereed academic journal that is published twice a year in open access online form http://shimajournal.org/index.php. It contains theoretical and/or comparative studies of islands and marine cultures, case studies of islands and marine cultures, accounts of collaborative research and development projects in island and marine cultures, analyses of fictional representations of islands, ‘islandness,’ and oceanic issues. There are photo and video essays on any aspects of the above.

The current issue focuses on almost islands  (presqu’îles) and peninsulas (péninsules), including an essay by Zrinka Mendas on the historic-economic traces in the former island cities of Zadar and Trogir in Croatia.

The Scottish Island Explorer http://scottishislandsexplorer.com/ is edited in Suffolk, designed on Jura, printed in Sussex, distributed from Lincolnshire and occupies an office at Kershader in the South Lochs area of the Isle of Lewis. It was founded in 2000, is “devoted to exploring the islands of Scotland”

The latest number July/August 2016 – is devoted to Fetlar and Barra, amongst other.

 

Four times a year, the Danish small islands association publishes an island journal called Ø-Posten, typically about 1216 pages. Edited by Lise Thilleman Sørensen on Strynø, it offers a superb impression of what’s up and what’s down in Denmark’s 27 small islands. So far, they have published 163 journals. You can download the latest and earlier issues here http://www.danske-smaaoer.dk/ø-posten. Number 162 was dedicated to ESIN’s meeting on Kastellorizo 2015.

The Island Studies Journal is a scholarly journal dedicated to the inter-disciplinary study of our ‘world of islands’ http://www.islandstudies.ca/journal. Its institutional home is the Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. All articles published are rigorously peer-reviewed. The journal’s executive Editor is professor Godfrey Baldacchino on Malta.

The November 2015 cover shows La Maîtresse in the Les Minquiers reef, Jersey/Channel Islands. The islet is 100 m long and by 50 m wide, with 12 stone cottages in various states of repair (photo Henry Johnson).

The magazine Skärgård (= Archipelago) is in its 39^th year, publishing four issues a year. It aims at documenting “the most unique area in Finland, both from a national and an international perspective: our coastal and island Swedish areas and cultural heritage” https://www.cll.fi/projekt/skargard/tidskriften-skargard/.

The magazine is managed by the Archipelago Institute at Åbo Akademi, editor is Nina Söderlund on Ramsö (Nagu). It invests in a selected texts and pictures, beautiful layout and high quality print. Shown is the 2005 issue on Kökar.

Sine 2007, the Swedish small island association publishes the periodical Vi skärgårdsbor, four times a year. Edited by Eva Widlund on Vinön (Wine Island), it reports mainly on small island development in Sweden but includes European outlooks as in this issue (2011), reporting from Brittany (Bretagne):

We must have forgotten lots of journals, especially if you include web pages and blogs. You are more than welcome to comment and to promote other journals. We’ll be more than happy to give them the space they deserve, here. Maybe we should create an island journals blogroll / link library?