George Frink, president of Southern Connections, engineered the redesign.

"We set out with the Biblical Recorder staff to make the site easier to navigate via a graphical interface, to retain its fast-loading nature and add an abundance of new features," Frink said. "I believe that by working hard together, we succeeded. To me, though, the best gauge of that will be the reactions of the folks for whom all that work was done - the site's day-to-day users."

Features related to the Recorder itself will include graphical navigation bars on every section index page. They highlight in red the "button" for the current section, and provide a link to every other section of the Biblical Recorder online.

Classified advertisements from the Recorder will also be available on the Web site for the first time, as will the weekly Sunday School lesson commentaries.

A multifunction graphic at the end of each article will allow users to convert the page into a low graphics format for easy printing, to send the article to a friend via e-mail, to respond directly to the Recorder's editors or to write a "Tar Heel Voices" letter.

A new database of Baptist State Convention (BSC) churches and missions will allow users to search for a church by town or by any word in the church name. The names of churches that have their own Web sites will be highlighted as hyperlinks, enabling users to go directly to the church's home page. The Recorder staff will rely on users to provide updated church Web site addresses, Cartledge said, noting the page will feature an easy-to-use form for that purpose. Future plans call for an expansion of the church page to allow each church to provide a paragraph of additional information, he said.

Other service-related features will include a page of links to other Baptist organizations and a calendar of events promoted by the BSC, its member institutions, agencies and churches, and other Baptist organizations of interest to Recorder readers. An interactive form will allow users to nominate additional events for the calendar, Cartledge said.

New features that are not specifically Baptist-related will include a gateway to searchable online Bible translations and links to both national news and local weather.

For the first time, the Web site will have the capability of including box and banner type advertisements. For rates and detailed specifications, users will be able to click on "Advertising" in one of the graphical navigation features.

Frink, whose company also hosts the Web site, reports that about 3,000 users from around the state, the country and the world access the Recorder Web site each week.

"These include many missionaries," Cartledge said, "which is one reason why the Web site requires no subscription fees and is provided as a free service. We hope the addition of limited advertisements will help to offset the growing costs of maintaining and expanding the site."

Design work for the makeover involved a study of other sites, input from users, and months of consultation between the Recorder staff and the developer. "The new site includes a navigation bar for 'Feedback,'" Cartledge said. "We encourage our readers to use it by sharing their impressions of the site, reporting any problems they encounter, or recommending future enhancements."