[you],

As you may have read elsewhere on AVSIM over the last three or four weeks, we are unifying the various parts of AVSIM into on, fully integrated site. That unification effort has as it's goals of providing our readers and community members a much nicer, easier to use, and feature rich experience. A subsidiary goal has been to allow AVSIM Staff an easier to use and reliable back-end management system. Over the last two months, we have succeeded in achieving those goals with the integration of the forums and our main content; news, reviews, interviews and other content.

And now it is time for us to do the same for the AVSIM File Library System. The current library design was launched in early 2001. After 11 years of nearly faultless operation, it is time we bring our library system into the modern era and into the integrated solution that we are now offering. We have just approved a contract to make that happen. With nearly 170 thousand files in our library system, with all the database information that is stored with them, this is not a trivial task. We have therefore contracted the services of an expert in all aspects of of our library and content systems.

Some very important points:

1. We estimate that the effort will take three to four weeks.
2. The current library will remain online and taking uploads while our integration efforts continue.
3. For those of you that run sites that link to AVSIM Library Files, your current URL links will remain valid.
   

What benefits will the new library system bring? A lot! Here are a few - and just a few!;

To Authors:

• No more having to concern yourself with keeping track of multiple revisions and uploads. Now you simply add your latest revision to the same file record and your revision is immediately made available to the community
• More control over your file, file description, accompany image(s) and more with the ability to edit your entry anytime you want
• When you complete an upload and the library manager approves it for public access, a forum topic will immediately and automatically be opened for your AND community members to provide down-loaders support
• An easy and very intuitive upload process. No more confusing, multiple pages to work through. Select a category, and the next page does it all
• Familiar forum-like functionality with the use of BBCode for your file descriptions and other information you can provide.
  

For Members:

• An intuitive, easy to use system that no longer requires multiple user ID's and passwords. One system UID/PW will give you access to the entire AVSIM site
• Immediate access to author and/or community support via the automated forum entry process
• Easy to understand revision process; no longer will need to hunt and peck to understand the updates to a file
• RSS notification of uploads. No more emails in the middle of the night (EST)... Now you will be able to subscribe to a library RSS feed and be updated multiple times a day with library uploads and activity, including updates and revisions to your favorite files.
  

And these are just a few. There are many additional modules that we can add to increase functionality and features to the library, and once we have the core system in place, we will be evaluating which modules to add that improve your AVSIM Library Experience.

If you have concerns or questions regarding the transition to our new library system, please join us in the Library Transition Forum.