Saturday, October 6, 2007

University of Nevada Press | Book Listings


University of Nevada Press | Book Listings

INTENDED AUDIENCE

• Potential customers, especially those interested in UNP’s particular specialties
• Authors hoping to publish in those specialty fields (with a secondary goal being the discouragement of authors who have manuscripts that don’t fall within those fields)

USEFULNESS OF CONTENT

This website does a good job of displaying the University of Nevada Press’ current offerings and describing the Press’ larger mission. The homepage is attractive without being too busy, with the book covers clearly displayed against the landscape image. (It helps that their books look good, too).

The “Books in Print” page is a long table (10 pages) with clickable titles that take you to a title’s homepage. The sheer length of this table makes it difficult to work with, and the grid is unattractive. The “Search” menu option allows you to search for books using quite a lot of variables, which allows for general and more specific searches (for example, UNP publishes heavily in Basque Studies, and a search for “basque” in the title turns up a long list of titles).

Although under “Mission” the website spells out its mission in terms of its responsibilities to the state of Nevada, it is more difficult to figure out what its publishing mission is. Under “For Authors” under the “UNP Information” menu, there’s a fairly general description of its publishing areas: “books in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences that deal with the history, literature, natural history and resources, environment, economy, politics, anthropology, ethnic groups and cultures of Nevada and the West; the Basque people of Europe and the Americas; Native Americans; gambling and commercial gaming; and contemporary affairs. The Press also publishes original fiction and creative nonfiction and books on regional topics for a general audience.” This is useful information for would-be authors in search of an appropriate press for their work. This page does a good job of providing submission information for authors.

The site also provides a clickable checklist for joining their email list, which also provides a good overview of the Press’ areas of specialization while allowing potential customers to receive information about their own specific areas of interest.

CONSISTENCY OF DESIGN

This is a beautiful website. The landscape image on the homepage is echoed by a different, smaller image on the rest of the pages, giving the website consistency without the following pages being overwhelmed by a large image. The individual book pages are nicely laid out, featuring attractive images of the books with accompanying text and book information. The only things I didn’t like were the grids, which I found jarring especially in contrast with the recurring landscape image, and the dull textiness of the “News & Events” page – it might have been nice to have small thumbnails of the relevant books beside each announcements, though that might have made the page longer.

EASE OF NAVIGATION

This site navigates very smoothly. There are multiple ways to get at information, especially current publications. It’s easy to find more specific information about each book, and each book’s page seems to have an individual identifier, which means that a Google search will turn up the Press’ website’s listing of the book.

All pages have a “Search keyword” option at the upper right of the pages. All pages except the homepage have a clickable image of the Fall 2007 catalog, which takes you to a page where you can order a paper catalog or view a PDF version of that catalog or of the Spring 2007 catalog.

The website uses a shopping cart which includes a “Continue shopping” button that takes you back to the long grid of available books.

Overall, this is a nicely done site that showcases the University of Nevada Press’ offerings and creates a pleasant shopping experience.

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