Tons of new content; site upgrades

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything to the blog here. It might seem like nothing has been happening, but that’s actually not true. A quick look at the ShipIndex webpage will show that; we have a new, much-improved page that responds to the size of the screen, meaning it works as well on a smartphone as it does on a laptop or a desktop.

Getting that done was a pretty big project, and it took a long time. I’m thrilled that it’s finally done. We may spot a thing or two to change, but for the time being I think we’re pretty happy with how it has turned out. A friend and colleague took over the process of carrying the project across the finish line, and he did a great job on that.

Another change has been to bring on someone to pick up the data work that I hadn’t been able to get to. I love doing that stuff, but just knew it wasn’t going to happen any time soon, and there was (and remains) a ton of work to be done there. And if we’re not adding content to the database, then we’re not adding much value. So our new data expert is working through backfiles as quickly as possible, and will soon be moving on to new files and to websites, as well. We have been working through that backlog of content that was waiting to be finished and loaded into the database, and we’ve been loading a ton of it.

Here’s a list of content that has been added in the past few weeks:

That’s a lot of new content! We also updated links to some online resource, where the webpage had totally changed its structure and didn’t have updated links, and improved some others, as well.

Each new resource has a “new” note on it, on our Resources page. If you’re following a particular ship name, then  you’ll get an email when new content is added for that ship name. Remember, you don’t need to be an active subscriber to get those emails. You need an account (because we need to know how to contact you), but that’s it. If you see a new citation that looks interesting, you can either subscribe to access the new content, or access it through your local library, if they offer access.

New content will keep being added over the next few weeks, and we have a plan for collecting even more monographic content at a major research university, then at New York Public Library, then at the Library of Congress, and then beyond. If there’s a title you think we should add, please do let me know, either here, or by email to comments (at) shipindex (dot) org!

 

 

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