AE: An Update with Destiny
- By Bruce McKinney
An easier site to use
By Bruce McKinney
Over the past seven years AE has evolved. It was first a database of 151,000 historical records and a nascent online publication about books. It began in 2002 by covering printed Americana in auctions prospectively and expanded into complete coverage of books, manuscripts and ephemera in 2004. It added extensive collector tools via Matchmaker the same year and Footnotes, documentation software, in 2005. In 2007 it added Books for Sale and in 2008 Wiki Bibliographies. This month we introduce a reorganization and simplification of the site into seven sections that replace the jury-rigged one-more-one-more approach of listing new services under an ever-longer list of services. Enough already!
The new site is divided into seven parts, all linked slices of the new pie chart, which is both on the AE home page and always accessible via the round HOME link on all AE pages. The seven pie-chart segments are:
Books for Sale
Search Upcoming Auction Lots
AE Monthly
Wiki Bibliographies
AE Database
AE Premium Services
Other...
Each of these sections aggregate all related pages. So for instance, in Search Upcoming Auction Lots there is
The Worldwide Search of Upcoming Auctions Lots,
List of Auction Houses covered,
2008 Charts and Analyses [membership required]
The Current Auction Calendar with links to previous, next and Click here for Complete Listings [a full size calendar]
AE Monthly is another pie chart segment:
The current issue of AE Monthly,
Across the AEM header there are links to Articles, Reviews, Advertising, Archives and Letters to the Editor. In the archives there are over 1,400 articles to search.
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AE: An Update with Destiny
- By Bruce McKinney
The New Auction Search Page
Books for Sale is material listed by AE members. No commissions are charged.
Wiki Bibliographies is the future of book buying and selling. Bibliographers create original, ever expanding bibliographies that encompass subjects potentially in all their many forms. These bibliographies then match all material in Books for Sale and upcoming auctions. For collectors it takes only a minutes or two every few days to stay up-to-date on developments in these collecting fields. To date, only a few Wikis have been posted. About 40 have been so far committed. By the end of the year perhaps 60 will be posted and another 40 under development. For Booksellers who list material in Books for Sale their material is automatically matched to all Wikis.
"Other" is all the other links that are necessary but less frequently used. Now they are in one place:
Book Fair and Events Calendar
Book Fair List
BYO [Build-Your-Own] Advertising
Contact us
International Bookseller’s Directory
Links
Message Boards
AE's paid services are divided into Database and Premium Services
AE Database. The AED is an easily searched database of more than two full text million records of works on paper offered at auction or described in bibliographies, dealer and collector catalogs. Recent auction results are immediately posted. A synthetic estimate of current value is also provided.
Premium Services. These services include all research privileges and the following additional services:
Listing in Books for Sale up to 12,000 items on a commission-free basis,
Matchmaker – the best automated private search and acquisition tools on the planet,
Footnotes – documentation software for creating sophisticated, quick presentations based on records in the AED,
Web Catalogue – a program for managing dealer inventory and private collections.
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AE: An Update with Destiny
- By Bruce McKinney
The New Books for Sale Search Page
For convenience a list of the Pie Chart segments is also listed in the new and very abbreviated menu listed under the Sign-in box. A HOME symbol is provided in the upper right corner of all pages. When you wish to get back to the pie chart you can always click on this symbol.
Over the years we have developed a committed following – 24,000 who receive AE Monthly, more than 14,000 who have signed up at some membership level. These changes reflect our commitment to simplify the site to make it as easy to use as it is already useful to use.
These are of course not the last changes we will make. We are inveterate tinkerers. But these are the sum total of everything our membership has told us about how they use the site and this is our best effort to create a more cohesive and understandable platform.
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