With much trepidation I have been awaiting the announced relaunch of the Archipelago Books site, which is apparently taking place on Monday, but meanwhile I've been blindsided by Dalkey Archive Press' latest site redesign (the fourth or fifth since I've been linking to them, sigh ...).
As they note, "Our new website is in the works. Any missing features will be added in the coming weeks", so I certainly wouldn't presume to judge this iteration yet (and the last one was ... problematic, to say the least (in a funky black-and-white way -- check it out at the Wayback Machine, as well as earlier incarnations here and here)), but ... dear god, how I hate when this happens.
The complete review, online since 1999 and looking every bit that antiquated and out-of-date ultra-basic HTML-coded site that makes clear the basics haven't changed a bit since back then, is, of course, a pretty sorry looking site. But every time I'm tempted to 'update' the look (and some of the works behind the scenes) ... well, I remind myself of what happens when sites get 'updated' and a new look -- which is, almost inevitably: nothing good.
One of the things I do here is link to all available reviews (or at least the ones I can find) and other information about any books under review, and one of the things that constantly amazes me is how few sites practice any sort of maintenance regarding their links and content. Essentially nothing I linked to in 1999 (or 2005 -- or, too often, 2011) is still available at the same URL (if at all). Publishers -- who would do well to have a stable, static page for each of their books -- are among the worst offenders -- and much-loved Dalkey Archive Press (over a hundred of their titles are under review at the complete review) is a perfect good (= bad) example. I'm still digging out and replacing links to their rebranding effort as centerforbookculture.org (check it out on the Wayback Machine ...) and now this ..... Maybe they'll get the redirects right this time (they sure as hell didn't last time, which wasn't that long ago), maybe Archipelago will too, but I have my doubts.
Keeping the links on review-pages at the complete review vaguely up-to-date is a Sisyphean task (that's probably not worth the trouble ...). Sites routinely change their page-URLs, and very few manage comprehensive redirects (where users are forwarded to the new URL even if they arrive on the old one), apparently allowing themselves to be convinced by their webmasters (rather than their content-masters) that the new system (which usually has a shelf-life of only a few years) is the must-have, must-do system. It's a constant and recurring nightmare -- and seems to me to be ultimately self-defeating. (But maybe I'm wrong ? Maybe stability is pointless in the modern (and future) internet-universe ?)
I am curious what the new Dalkey site will offer -- hey, there's promise of blog of sorts (or two ? an 'editorial blog' and a 'reader response blog' ?) ! -- but really all I'd like to see is stable, permanent links to the basic information (their books, old issues of the Review of Contemporary Fiction and Context, etc.). But I'm not holding my breath. And I'm terrified of what I'll find at wherever the Archipelago Books site might turn up on Monday.
(Okay: there are times when webmasters get it just right: the one I've been most impressed by in recent years is the Publishers Weekly-review system. Not the whole site, mind you (no comment), but the reviews: type in the ISBN-13 (with or without hyphens) and there you go: e.g. their review of Dan Brown's Inferno can be found at www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-38553-785-8 (or, indeed, www.publishersweekly.com/9780385537858). They blew it on the redirects from their previous (awful) system too, but this almost makes up for it -- this is sensible, this works, this is a real improvement over any previous (and all alternative) identification-systems. Unlike what most publishers do .....
(Just to remind you of how ancient the complete review is: page-URLs are so basic because back when I started this it wasn't possible (!) to have file-names longer than eight characters; some at the complete review are now longer, but the habit is hard to break.))
The complete review, online since 1999 and looking every bit that antiquated and out-of-date ultra-basic HTML-coded site that makes clear the basics haven't changed a bit since back then, is, of course, a pretty sorry looking site. But every time I'm tempted to 'update' the look (and some of the works behind the scenes) ... well, I remind myself of what happens when sites get 'updated' and a new look -- which is, almost inevitably: nothing good.
One of the things I do here is link to all available reviews (or at least the ones I can find) and other information about any books under review, and one of the things that constantly amazes me is how few sites practice any sort of maintenance regarding their links and content. Essentially nothing I linked to in 1999 (or 2005 -- or, too often, 2011) is still available at the same URL (if at all). Publishers -- who would do well to have a stable, static page for each of their books -- are among the worst offenders -- and much-loved Dalkey Archive Press (over a hundred of their titles are under review at the complete review) is a perfect good (= bad) example. I'm still digging out and replacing links to their rebranding effort as centerforbookculture.org (check it out on the Wayback Machine ...) and now this ..... Maybe they'll get the redirects right this time (they sure as hell didn't last time, which wasn't that long ago), maybe Archipelago will too, but I have my doubts.
Keeping the links on review-pages at the complete review vaguely up-to-date is a Sisyphean task (that's probably not worth the trouble ...). Sites routinely change their page-URLs, and very few manage comprehensive redirects (where users are forwarded to the new URL even if they arrive on the old one), apparently allowing themselves to be convinced by their webmasters (rather than their content-masters) that the new system (which usually has a shelf-life of only a few years) is the must-have, must-do system. It's a constant and recurring nightmare -- and seems to me to be ultimately self-defeating. (But maybe I'm wrong ? Maybe stability is pointless in the modern (and future) internet-universe ?)
I am curious what the new Dalkey site will offer -- hey, there's promise of blog of sorts (or two ? an 'editorial blog' and a 'reader response blog' ?) ! -- but really all I'd like to see is stable, permanent links to the basic information (their books, old issues of the Review of Contemporary Fiction and Context, etc.). But I'm not holding my breath. And I'm terrified of what I'll find at wherever the Archipelago Books site might turn up on Monday.
(Okay: there are times when webmasters get it just right: the one I've been most impressed by in recent years is the Publishers Weekly-review system. Not the whole site, mind you (no comment), but the reviews: type in the ISBN-13 (with or without hyphens) and there you go: e.g. their review of Dan Brown's Inferno can be found at www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-38553-785-8 (or, indeed, www.publishersweekly.com/9780385537858). They blew it on the redirects from their previous (awful) system too, but this almost makes up for it -- this is sensible, this works, this is a real improvement over any previous (and all alternative) identification-systems. Unlike what most publishers do .....
(Just to remind you of how ancient the complete review is: page-URLs are so basic because back when I started this it wasn't possible (!) to have file-names longer than eight characters; some at the complete review are now longer, but the habit is hard to break.))