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Home » The Society’s Southern History Recommended Reading » 01 Our Top 150 Recommendations » 01.03 Archived Society Monthly Newsletters » 01.03.01 September 2013 Southern Historians Newsletter

01.03.01 September 2013 Southern Historians Newsletter

The Society of Independent Southern Historians

Our September 2013 Newsletter

Considerable progress was made in the expansion of the structure and content of our web-site, www.southernhistorians.org , and we are excited about telling you about them.  Let us do them by the numbers:

  1. The addition of indices to our web-site structure has become a valuable tool.  Now anyone can inquire by an author’s name, a book title or an individual’s name and immediately learn if and where that item is listed among the recommended reading items in our bibliography.  You are encouraged to start your search there when contemplating a book, an author or an individual which interests you.
  2. The society has begun publishing brief membership essays on our web-site.  Not sure of the maximum length essay for which we can allocate space (words take far less computer storage space than pictures), but a few pages is fine.  Even 25 pages might fit into our capabilities.  Do not think space will allow books.  If you have a book that needs to be published, go to amazon.com and self-publish it as a Kindle e-book.  That will cost you nothing and will earn you a little money.  Then, if your book fits within the Society’s mission, we will post your book review and include a “click-on-it” URL that takes our viewer to you Kindle e-book on the amazon.com web-site, making it easy for him or her to view the book and make a purchase decision.  “Click-on-it” service will not be provided for print books because many purchase options are available for used books.
  3. Speaking of “click-on-it” ability, during September, we will be adding that in the “Availability of this Book” section of book reviews for books where we find an e-book version exists (Kindle, Google or Library; scanned as well as OCR-converted-to-text).  In this effort of tracking down e-book versions, we encourage help from the membership.  Send an e-mail to howardraywhite@gmail.com with the URL and we will post the link.
  4. We are adding key words to the front-line website pages that will best direct web search engines, such as Google, to present our web-site high up on the list in response to many pertinent individual inquiries.  A huge amount of information is presented on the web, the most helpful being Wikipedia.  We want to be high on the list, getting attention when we can be helpful to web users.  Our web-site was built using WordPress, a popular programing tool.  Persons familiar with web-site design are encouraged to help us make ours better and better.
  5. During September the Society will be reconfiguring home page button 01, Epic Histories, so it is more helpful to visitors.  Epic Histories will be moved to a sub-page of a different home page button.  Button 01 will be retitled, “Top 150 Recommendations.”  Under it will be many categories so that for each subject covered in our bibliography structure, there will be a top Recommended Reading Reference.  There will also be a few “Top Selections of the Month,” giving visitors something new twelve times a year.  There will also be “This Month’s Selected Member Essays,” allowing us to feature a few each month.  There will be a link to “Archived Newsletters.”  We are hopeful that these added features will encourage greater Member contributions to our content, including, of course helping us make our web-site the best bibliography of truthful Southern history available on the internet.
  6. So, friends, applicants and members, please step forward and increase your participation by:
  •  If not yet an applicant, fill out and mail in the application form on the website:  https://southernhistorians.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Membership-application.pdf .
  • If an applicant, not yet a member, upgrade you application to a membership by submitting a book review for us to post to the web-site, or send us a check for $25.00 or more to help cover expenses (we are all-volunteer, but have expenses for professional web-site services; we are a non-profit so you get a tax deduction; our annual budget is $5,000, a huge bang for your buck).
  • Recruit.  Recruit.  Recruit.  Yes help us add informed, contributing members who give of their time or their money toward our mission.
  • Advertise.  Advertise.  Advertise.  Forward this newsletter to your friends.  Tell about us in other newsletters, such as your SCV camp newsletter or your history group newsletter.  In your Facebook, web-site or blog, link to our web-site with an encouraging comment.

 Look forward to hearing from you.

 Clyde N. Wilson, Director of Historical Review

Howard Ray White, Director of Operations