Press Release

Bookseller Homepage Re-Designed and Re-launched

Tarrytown, NY - May 31, 2007 The American Booksellers Association has launched a new member website, BookWeb.org. The new site offers users greatly improved site navigation and content organization, a new Booksellers' Wiki and blog, and a fully re-designed online Book Buyer's Handbook, the definitive guide to vendor's trade terms.

"When we went online with our member website in the mid-1990s, we believed that it would become an essential resource for member booksellers, which is has," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz, "but it was also time to fully update the site, and to add important functionality now available. We believe the new BookWeb.org will become an even more important tool for their successful bookstore operations, and hope ABA members will set it as their homepage, so ABA news and tools are always available. "

The new BookWeb.org gives members access to a wealth of information about ABA initiatives and services, including those in education, advocacy, and the association's national marketing program, Book Sense. It also offers access to the association's newsletter, BTW, a wide range of resources on free speech and legislative issues, and links to regional trade association, shop local initiatives, and other book-related groups.

The new site is also the home of ABA's new blog, "Omnibus," a regular update on, among other topics, bookselling, authors, and issues related to retail and technology. And it's hoped that the Booksellers' Wiki will become valued source of bookselling information, generated by users.

Long a staple resource for booksellers, the new Book Buyer's Handbook has several new features that allow booksellers to customize the Handbook, including the ability to add user's notes and to create their own "hot list" of vendors.

"All in all, this is a very significant launch for us," said Dan Cullen, the director of ABA's Information Department, "a project that, quite literally, everyone at ABA has contributed to. But this is really more of a beginning than a completion -- for we hope to be continually adding content to the site and working to make the user's experience on the site richer and easier."

ABA's technology partner in the launch was Objective Consulting, Inc. (OCI) an Internet consulting and software development company headquartered in Tarrytown, New York. OCI helps organizations to improve their business processes through the development and integration of network and web-based software applications.Founded in 1993, and headed by President Gene W. Homicki, the OCI team worked with ABA on the launch of the original BookWeb.org, developing the online ABA Book Buyer's Handbook project, the improved electronic reporting options for the Book Sense Bestseller lists, and enhanced printing options for ABA's newsletter, BTW.

About American Booksellers Association

Founded in 1900, the American Booksellers Association is a not-for-profit trade organization devoted to meeting the needs of its core members- independently owned bookstores with storefront locations-through education, information dissemination, business products and services, and advocacy. ABA exists to protect and promote the interests of retail book businesses, as well as to protect the First Amendment rights of every American, and it actively supports free speech, literacy, and programs that encourage reading. A board of nine booksellers, representing thousands of members, governs the Association. ABA is headquartered in Tarrytown, New York.

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