As you have probably realized by now, “Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple” has a new look. The website, now in its fifth year of operation, underwent extensive re-conceptualization and re-design by Elizabeth Parker, a graphic artist at San Diego State University. Parker streamlined the look of the site in order to make it more readable and more user-friendly.
We would like to highlight a few other improvements beyond the new design of the site.
First is the addition of an extensive series of Jonestown remembrances listed under 25th Anniversary, 18 November 2003. A navigation bar will take visitors directly to these first-person accounts and observations written expressly for the 25th Anniversary. We will be adding stories to this section as they come in.
A new section called “About Jonestown” also has its own navigation bar, and several subdirectories which take people to Frequently Asked Questions, information about who lived and died in Jonestown, past and present issues of the jonestown report, tape summaries and transcripts, and articles and primary source documents by and about Peoples Temple and its members.
The Primary Sources section under “About Jonestown” has been enlarged to include such documents as the letter from the Eight Revolutionaries, Jim Jones’ critique of the Bible in his pamphlet, “The Letter Killeth”, and notes written to the world from Jonestown on 18 November by Richard Tropp and Annie Moore), with more documents to be uploaded soon.
Within a few months, we will reconfigure the Articles section, also under “About Jonestown,” to focus on analyses of Peoples Temple by students and scholars of new religious movements, historians, and other writers. Remembrances by former Temple members, relatives, and those who were involved with the Temple during its life will form the basis of a new “Observations” section, one we hope will grow with each year.
The photo gallery has been expanded, and allows viewers to scroll through thumbnail pictures, and with a click, enlarge them for better viewing – all on the same screen.
Visitors can continue to search the site for names and concepts using the “Search” function.
As always, we welcome comments and suggestions.
In the meantime, the managers of the site would like to express our appreciation to Elizabeth Parker for her creative skill and her sensitivity to the site’s content. Thank you, Liz!