I always thought I was a paper sort of person. I look forward to getting my monthly magazines in the mail, each morning starts with my Wall Street Journal and I’ve never lost that twinge of excitement in holding and opening a new book. I won’t go as far as to say I’ll never purchase a Kindle or other e-book reader, but for right now, I’m not even interested in picking one up.

Yet, I can tell my ways are changing.

I used to go through copious amounts of paper, printing out emails and documents and things online that interested me. It was not unusual for me to go through an entire box of paper in less than a year. This past year? I went through three reams of paper. That’s it.

Even for luddites like me, there’s a paradigm shift happening in how we read information. In addition to my regular paper newspaper routine, I also read a number of papers on my iPhone after breakfast.

Imagine saying this 20 years ago: “I can’t talk to you right now. I’m reading the newspaper on my phone.”

Part of that is increased access. Even if I wanted to subscribe to the New York Times, I’d get the Midwestern edition, a pale counterpart to its East Coast sister. Closer to home, for me to read the headlines in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the Hudson Star Observer or The Rhinelander Daily News, I would have to subscribe and wait for the paper to be mailed to me.

Another aspect is the greening of our society. Whether you believe in the bigger picture political arguments is not relevant. What is relevant is that paper products use trees. I think more of us are making conscious choices about things we never thought twice about. This past month, we actually had a subscriber contact us because three different people in his company had subscriptions to the magazine. His view? They could get along with one and share it.

While I think there will always be a place and a need for paper editions of many specific publications — I’ve been told more than once by state executives in my 13 years with CRW that this magazine is the perfect “airplane” magazine, that is, it can be read cover to cover on an average flight — digital versions have their place as well. Indeed, this is also the first year this magazine has offered a formal advertising package that includes digital options. More and more advertisers are interested in this as well. I can vouch for the fact that I do take notice of online advertising and have clicked through more than once or twice as a consumer.

With that said, our March issue is the first issue of Corporate Report Wisconsin available in digital format. If we have your email address on file, you’ll receive an invitation this month to subscribe to our digital version in addition to our print edition. If we don't have your email address on file, please go to our Web site and click on the "Subscribe to CRW" tab.

Subscribing digitally is the fastest way to each new edition as it is available.

This is truly a best-of-both-worlds situation, because we suspect that there’s a lot of readers out there just like me … we like our print in our hands and on our screens. You don’t have to choose one over the other. You can have both.

By Laurie Arendt

Laurie Arendt is editor of CRW. She can be reached at crweditor@crwmag.com