Hoo-boy. Big Day here at ShipIndex.org’s Eastern US World Headquarters.

We’ve decided that it’s time to find the right person to help us with institutional sales. To that end, we are putting out this job announcement and are looking for someone to join our team. If you’re that person, or know someone who might be, please let them and us know.  Please help us by sharing this information widely.

In a nutshell, this is a position for a person who knows libraries, and knows library sales. This is a work-from-home position, and we don’t necessarily expect a full-time commitment, though because of the graduated commission structure, it might be worth it. (We can talk about salaries and commission further down the line, maybe not right here on the blog.) The job doesn’t require a lot of travel, except for the usual big library conferences.

The posting is below; please let us know if you have questions, or would like to be considered for the position. We hope to make a decision, and get moving on this, as quickly as we can.

Manager, Institutional Sales, ShipIndex.org

ShipIndex.org seeks a part-time or full-time person to lead and manage all aspects of the company’s institutional sales. The successful applicant will have a documented history of successful institutional sales management; a demonstrated ability to work independently as a self-starter; and an understanding of libraries and how they use and manage electronic resources.

ShipIndex.org helps people do research on specific ships, boats, and vessels. We have a database of over 1.3 million citations – and growing – that tells people what books, journals, websites, and databases mention the vessel they’re researching. We offer our service directly to consumers and also to institutions. ShipIndex.org is a valuable tool for public, academic, and special libraries, primarily in supporting genealogy and history, but with additional application in many other fields. The successful applicant’s responsibility will be all institutional sales, in the US and abroad, with support as needed from the rest of the company. Physical location is not an issue, though the individual must be able to work in the US legally.

Compensation is primarily commission-based, with a part-time salary component. While we expect a minimum of 20 hours per week invested in the work, most of the compensation is in a sliding-scale commission structure, so there is a clear benefit to a greater time investment. This is a telephone sales position, so minimal travel is expected, with the exception of occasional conferences, such as ALA Annual, ALA Midwinter, PLA, ACRL, and others, as appropriate. The successful candidate will participate in decisions regarding which conferences s/he attends.

Responsibilities include following up on leads generated online and at conferences, generating new leads, explaining the product and its benefits to potential customers, managing consortial sales and promotion, advising the company on marketing and sales strategies and tools, helping customers through the invoicing and licensing process, providing limited support as needed and with significant assistance from the rest of the company, and other duties as necessary in guiding institutional sales.

At present, ShipIndex.org consists of two owners, who live on opposite sides of the country. The successful candidate will be the company’s first employee; applicants must be certain they’re comfortable working in this size of a company.

If you’re interested in applying, please submit a work history and a cover letter explaining your interest in the position and the library industry. An interest in maritime history is also helpful, but not required. Please include the names of at least three references. All applications will be held in strictest confidence.

We welcome questions about the position. Questions and applications may be submitted to careers [at] shipindex [dot] org.

Mike has built a nice new piece of the website that tells you how many citations you’ll find for each entry, and what type of resource you’ll find them in.

If you’re accessing the freely-accessible content, and don’t have a subscription, you’ll see how many citations are in the free database, and how many are in the complete database (ie, both the free and the premium databases). Each listing also shows what types of resources are listed, too. For example, if you’re using the free content, and you search for “Columbus“, you’ll see a message that reads:

The free database contains 112 citations from 40 resources, including 37 books, 2 journals, and 1 online resource, with 1 illustration.

The complete database contains 574 citations from 71 resources, including 51 books, 8 journals, and 12 online resources, with 3 illustrations and 24 passenger or crew lists.

Note that we also indicate how many illustrations and passenger or crew lists you’ll find in each part of the database, as well. This gives you a better feel for what to expect, if you’re trying to decide whether or not you should subscribe.

If you’re searching the premium database, you’ll see an entry like the following:

This ship has 574 citations from 71 resources, including 51 books, 8 journals, and 12 online resources, with 3 illustrations and 24 passenger or crew lists.

Of course, these numbers will change as we add more content.

We hope this will be especially useful for folks who are trying to decide if they should subscribe or not, but they’ll also be quite valuable for subscribers to ensure they’re seeing everything there is to see about their vessel.

Enjoy.

Yesterday,  I added content from ten years of indexes to Mariners’ Mirror, the core journal in maritime history. I’ve added the indexes to Volumes 76 to 80, and Volumes 86 to 90.

The index to volumes 86 to 90 include photos, plates, and some illustrations, which I’ve noted here.

I’ll better clarify the years of coverage, and fill in more gaps, in the next few weeks. Many more years of Mariners’ Mirror are on the way, however.

I’ve been to several conferences in the past few weeks. One question that I’m often asked, and one that I imagine people looking at the site are asking, is, “how far back do the ships in the collection go?” The short answer is that the range of vessels currently being added to the database is “any named vessel in a resource in English.” So, an English-language book or website that focuses on German, Italian, Chinese, or Norwegian vessels is definitely of interest, and would be added.

While in Salt Lake City for the National Genealogical Society conference, I was working on one ten-year portion of the index to Mariner’s Mirror, and it included a reference to the wreck of a named Roman ship from the 3rd century BC.

The other night, I was out having a beer with a neighbor, and we were talking about the range of content in ShipIndex.org. I told him that I had recently found a book on the Athenian navy, which I intend to add, and that I was a bit surprised that vessels had names, even back then. Since he’s a Classics professor and expert in ancient Greek and Roman history, he immediately replied, “Oh, yeah – there are many named vessels from that time. One example is the Salaminia, which was the sacred ship of Athens, and no business could be done when it was away from Athens. Socrates was sentenced to death while the Salaminia was out of the port, so his jailers were forced to wait until the Salaminia returned before they could carry out his death sentence.”

Much more information followed, including other references to actions by or related to the Salaminia, from the 5th century BC. That was very interesting to hear, and I’ll soon add the resource on the Athenian navy. I think from now on I’ll see if I can find anything older than the Salaminia. It does give a specific guideline as to how far back content in ShipIndex.org goes, though – pretty far back.

Do you know of earlier named ships? Are they in the database? Let me know, and we can check.