Dear 5 Bank Streeters:

After several months of work and testing, last Friday we released a complete redesign of the Willa Cather Archive (http://cather.unl.edu). This new look prioritizes comfortable reading and is meant, typographically, to evoke the design sensibilities Cather herself preferred for her works: wide margins, large type, and pleasing simplicity. The font is, in fact, an electronic font based on a typeface design by Rudolph Ruzicka, the designer of some of Cather's Knopf dust jackets and, most likely, her headstone. 

The redesigned site is also much more friendly for mobile devices. Last year, about 25% of all encounters with the Cather Archive were on mobile devices or tablets, and that number will only grow. I've used responsive web design technology so the site will make select design adjustments for users with smaller screens, adjustments that will make reading and navigating much more comfortable.

Thanks goes to those who provided excellent feedback and advice during the redesign process, and I want to particularly thank Karin Dalziel, Emily Rau, Gabi Kirilloff, Caterina Bernardini, and Samantha Greenfield for their help. 

We hope you enjoy the redesigned site, and, as always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions. 

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you soon at the Cather Seminar, and I promise I'll have some nice Cather Archive swag for you to take home with you.

Best,

Andy Jewell

--

Andrew Jewell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University Libraries

co-editor, Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing (www.scholarlyediting.org)
Editor, Willa Cather Archive (http://cather.unl.edu)
203S Love Library
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE  68588
402.472.5266
[log in to unmask]