Software and site development is incremental accompanied once every two or three years with a major remake/rewrite. During the past month we’ve been made several incremental changes worth noting.
On our home, AE Monthly and auction pages we have added movement in the image boxes on the right side and we think the difference is significant because it gathers attention to specific events or catalogues. This month Christie’s is advertising their Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts auction in London on June 13th. Images they selected appear every six seconds in effect creating a catalogue browsing experience for anyone whose eyes are drawn for a few moments to the activity. Each image in their case is linked to specific lots in their upcoming sale at London, King Street.
The same activity is occurring in the second and third boxes, de Orbe Novo and The Arader Galleries.
The Internet provides broad options for obtaining information but there is every indication the sheer speed of such encounters often requires more incidental encounters to achieve the same intensity of impression as print media. Hence the now common assessment of booksellers who report that electronic catalogues, while robust and flexible, do not generate as many sales as the traditional printed catalogue. We believe the addition of activity in presentation will dramatically increase viewer awareness.
As to the size of the audience AE Monthly is emailed to more than 20,000 individuals and institutions each month and thousands more come to the site regularly for an update on the world of books.
Another Change: revised advance search
The advanced search screen now has the Keyword(s) field at the top with the next four most commonly used fields, author, title, year printed and place printed just below. This sequences these most commonly used fields in order of their frequency of use.
The Keyword field continues to search all terms as unique and sequential. A search for Washington finds 91,268 records in the AED. Adding George narrows the results to 23,045. Adding Martha brings the number of results down to a manageable 160
