Advice for consolidated listing of resources

[trippwj]

Greetings all.  I have been gathering links to a wide variety of resources (old and new) available on the internet for use in model building.  These range from scanned treatises from the 16th century (the oldest I currently have is from 1578) to available academic research (including theses and dissertations). Topics range from ship specific (such as the US Frigate Constellation) to highly generic (such as period treatises on rigging).  I am contemplating posting these links to a website that I can update periodically, rather than continuing to update my posts here on MSW.

 

Where i could use your help is, first, in getting a feel for whether you would use such a site, and second in deciding the best way to organize the website - I will not be uploading the actual documents, but rather a brief description with a link to the URL to access the document.  Would it be more useful to be organized by subject (such as Dutch Shipbuilding; Masts and Rigging; Naval Architecture; Early American Frigate documents) or in some other manner?  How would you want to be able to find the desired information on such a site?

 

CAVEAT - I know NOTHING about web design, and am going to be learning as I go, so keep any advice on the structure and so on for a neophyte with little or no knowledge!

 

Many thanks!

[allanyed]

WOW, That is one heck of a project Wayne.   I cannot see anyone that would not use it.    

Allan

[flying_dutchman2]

I would use it and by subject would be preferred.  Figuring out and listing how you are going to organize the subjects will be a serious undertaking (maybe you already have this). 

Example.

Ship Building

Dutch

Fluit

Rigging

 

Marcus

Edited May 24, 2016 by Marcus Botanicus

[Mark P]

Dear Wayne;

 

Such a resource as you describe would be invaluable to many modellers.  

 

I would certainly be a visitor.  The thought of constructing a model that subsequently turns out to contain errors which could have been eliminated by deeper research is not pleasant.  The availability of additional resources would be most welcome.

 

Listing in the way you outline seems to be best to me.

 

I could also perhaps help in some small way,  if you need anything from England.  Please feel free to ask if you think of anything that may require some on-the-spot research.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[pompey2]

Hi Wayne

Sounds like a great project.

Could you put the information in a database?

Then you would not have to decide how to organize the information.

People could search by subject, date, country or any other information that was put into the DB.

 

Nick

[EJ_L]

Wayne, that sounds like a great idea and one I would highly use. I constantly have many different websites, magazines, journals, plans and books open on my table at home that I am going back and forth through piecing together information. Having much of that in one place would be great.

 

I think that having a searchable data base would be the best way as I think there may be to many topics to list out but the layout Marcus has suggested would be a good start.

 

I hope this can become a success to the benefit of all of us.

[texxn5]

Hi Wayne, sounds like a great project.  I highly recommend weebly.com as a easy to use, user friendly, website creator, name, host and all of the instructions for website creation.  It is a free site, and if you purchase your domain name from them, they will still host your website for free.  The only time you would pay for the hosting, is if you do an eCommerce site where you sell something.  My CW Morgan site is free and I did it all myself and I knew nothing when I started out.

 

John

[trippwj]

Hi Wayne

Sounds like a great project.

Could you put the information in a database?

Then you would not have to decide how to organize the information.

People could search by subject, date, country or any other information that was put into the DB.

 

Nick

 

I probably could.  Just need to figure out how to build and support a database integrated into the website.

 

Very early draft is up - note that it is still a very early work in progress.  Working to learn Wordpress as well as figure out a database method.  (Yep, never done anything with a web page before).

 

http://nauticalresources.info/

[trippwj]

Hi Wayne, sounds like a great project.  I highly recommend weebly.com as a easy to use, user friendly, website creator, name, host and all of the instructions for website creation.  It is a free site, and if you purchase your domain name from them, they will still host your website for free.  The only time you would pay for the hosting, is if you do an eCommerce site where you sell something.  My CW Morgan site is free and I did it all myself and I knew nothing when I started out.

 

John

 

High there, John!  Actually have a domain on Bluehost.  Would appreciate any advice as I move forward!

 

http://nauticalresources.info/

[CDR_Ret]

Hi Wayne.

 

You are expressing the lament of all who attempt to categorize a diverse area of knowledge into searchable, logical bins.

 

One approach would be to use a keyword search, but assigning keywords to links can become very time-consuming and laborious.

 

Another would be to use something akin to the Dewey Decimal Classification system, or for us old navy folks, the SSIC (Standard Subject Identification Code) system.

 

In the end, no system is perfect.

 

Best wishes on your project!

 

Terry

[CDR_Ret]

I checked out your site and it has great possibilities.

 

Make sure you provide links to the ship Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) web pages at the Library of Congress and National Park Service. For example, here is the schooner C.A. Thayer's HAER page.

 

Terry

Edited June 7, 2016 by CDR_Ret

[trippwj]

Just a very small update.  I am currently working on the webpage design - what is currently there is really just a place holder until I can get the whole thing working.  I also believe I have located a good database to move the information into, which should enable search functionality using keywords, date, title, author etc.  While I am working on this, I will have an occasional post about interesting resources that can be found on the internet -

 

Many thanks!