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African American Literature Book Club - The #1 Site for "Readers of Black Literature" |
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AALBC.com has changed it's look quite a bit since 1997....
 This was
the start of the first African American Literature Book Club homepage.
This was before the AALBC.com domain was even registered (remember when
those little "Under Construction icons were popular).
The URL was http://johnsonpcc.com/books (where Johnsonpcc = Johnson P.C. Consultants) Date: October 23, 1997 |
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 The
AALBCcom domain was registered in March of 1998. Here we've "spruced
up" the site with some navigation buttons and we took the dramatic step of
actually placing the cover of a book on the homepage (E.
Lynn Harris' And This Too Shall Pass).
Notice the BlackWords "Fist with the Pencil" Logo; we were the "Official Web Site" for BlackWord's 360Ί A Revolution of Black Poets historic event. Poets are still raving about that event today. We also "boast" over 400 pages of content Date: September 4, 1998 |
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 We liked
the idea of having book on the homepage so we added nine more. At the
time most people were still using 28.8 kbps modems; having this many books
on the homepage increased the page download time dramatically.
These titles were chosen for the homepage because they were the books with the most votes for the Best Books of the 20th Century. The Color Purple by Alice Walker was Voted #1. Now we also "boast" over 500 pages of content Date: November 3, 1998 |
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 We decided
to lose the books and add fancier buttons that was not such a good idea.By the way, that is Kindred by Octavia Butler on the homepage. A darn good book. Read it when you get a chance
Date: January 18, 1999 |
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 The time
we lost the buttons, but now we are struggling for decent look. This
homepage may have lasted a couple of weeks.Now we are up to over 600 pages of content. Date: March 13, 1999 |
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 We
are still experimenting with the look and replaced the buttons with a drop
down menu. Advertising banners are introduced onto the homepage.
Advertising eventually becomes AALBCcom's largest revenue stream.Date: circa April 1999 |
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 After
witnessing our struggle with the homepage's layout; our friends at
mosaicbooks.com hooked us up with a new
design.Notice the ad banner for the 1st Harlem Book Fair, July 24, 1999. The Harlem Book Fair ultimately becomes the premier Black Book fair in the country. AALBC.com has been on the Harlem Book Fair advisory committee for the last few years. Design in Collaboration with Ron Kavanaugh, Mosaicbooks.com Date: circa May1999 |
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 We still
were not satisfied. The drop down menu caused problems with some
browsers. Instead of button we simply used text (often simple is
better).We are now boasting 700 pages. At the time, this was a huge we site. All of the pages are linked in such a way that one may go from any page on the site to any other page in 4 clicks of less (the same is true today even with thousands of pages and dynamically generated content). Design in Collaboration with Ron Kavanaugh, Mosaicbooks.com Date: Circa early 2000 |
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 We
designed a logo (finally). We continue to experiment with layout with
mixed results.We begin selling more books directly. Kevin Powell's Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature is a big seller as well as titles from John A. Williams (the direct sales of books does not turn out to be a viable long term strategy). We now have over 1,200 pages of content. Around this time we simply stop counting pages. Design in Collaboration with Ron Kavanaugh, Mosaicbooks.com Date: January 2001 |
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 We
had this look for the last couple of years now. We added more books to
the homepage and provided direct links to our most recently added content.
As you can see AALBC.com's homepage is in a constant state of change. As we learn more and adapt to improvements in technology, you'll see changes not only on the homepage but throughout the site. While we are better than we were, we are not as good as we are going to get. Stay tuned for bigger and better things.
As always, thanks for your book purchases and support! Design in Collaboration with Ron Kavanaugh, Mosaicbooks.com
Troy Johnson,
Date: March 3, 2004 |
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Troy Johnson, Date: March 12, 2007 |
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