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Introduction
The idea of this web site came to me during my various searches for photos that feature a certain subject matter. I've spent a lot of time surfing the net. And a lot of money buying books and ordering documents from national archives (most sight-unseen, as little is available from local sources). In spite of my best efforts to make my research go efficiently, I've wasted much of these resources on wild goose chases!
So -- the idea here is to keep others from having to reinvent the wheel. The Bibliography and Illustrations indices are designed to help you go directly to the resources that have what you want, whether that might be books, magazines, videos, CD-ROMs, feature articles on this site, or articles on other web sites.
Of course, the scope of the index is limited at present. 100% of the HTML that defines these pages comes from a database. I've been working hard to design this database -- the vast majority of my work thus far has been in this area as opposed to writing and scanning actual content. But this will change over time as the structure of the database matures.
Since all of the HTML comes from a database there's an incredible amount of flexibility with which these indices can be presented. I've just started to scratch the surface.
Right now all pages are static. For example, you can't perform free-form key word searches. In contrast, a dynamic web site generates the HTML on the fly and in accordance with the user's input.
None of the web space currently at my disposal supports dynamic page generation. If the static version of the site is successful then perhaps it will be feasible to eventually switch to a dynamic site at some point in the future.
In the meanwhile I'll work on presenting the indexed items in ways that make searching even easier. As more illustrations are scanned I'll develop separate indices based on "study areas". Some examples might include a different index for each production version, one for interior views, one for photos taken in N. Africa, etc. As you can see, these indices will often overlap -- one item might belong to several different study areas.
In addition to the indexes you will also find various "feature" articles which cover a given topic in depth. Note that all photos and drawings that appear on this site have corresponding thumbnails located in the Illustrations index. Illustrations appearing elsewhere are indexed under Bibliography.
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