Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that a number of the books I review (about a quarter I would estimate) are published by InterVarsity Press. Call it an occupational hazard of working for the collegiate ministry that is the parent organization of which InterVarsity Press is part. We have the opportunity to purchase new releases at a significant discount, all books for a good discount, and they send us occasional freebies. Not a bad fringe benefit, eh?

Recently, when I went to link to a book I was reviewing, I discovered that InterVarsity Press (hereafter, IVP) has completed an elegant update of the website. I visit a number of publisher websites and was very impressed with the look, navigability, and content of the site.

First the homepage. For those searching for a specific title, there is a search bar just below the IVP logo allowing searches by keywords, titles, authors, or series names like “LifeGuide.” Opposite the search bar is a free shipping offer, log in and cart (yes you can have an account and buy stuff direct!). Below the searchbar you see the site menu. “Books” lists categories of books you can search under. “IVP Academic” includes a listing of their academic line books, a textbook locator for professors, instructor resources, an exam or desk copy request form and a catalog request. “About our authors” features authors, provides author booking information and allows you to contact authors through IVP. “Special offers” includes info on their book club, and special programs for commentaries, sets and bulk discounts. There is finally a selection just related to the book club.

Below a rotating banner with clickable features appear IVP’s latest releases. Scrolling down the page, one finds a row of boxes (which may change over time) but feature a “Hard Saying of the Day,” an e-book of the week, a “Meet Our Authors,” and a chance to subscribe to newsletters for the different publishing lines of IVP.  Further down, is a row of “Trending Now Books”. By clicking on the covers you can go to the page for the book. Then you come to a row listing the different lines of IVP books and currently featured titles in each line — IVP Academic, IVP Books, IVP Connect, Formatio, and Praxis. Each drop down describes the line, and in addition to featured books shows featured authors and news.

At the very bottom of the page you can access a number of options under “Resources,” “Partners,” “Help” and “About. Two that I will highlight:

• The “Daily Quiet Time Study,” a long time feature that provides a biblical passage and discussion questions from one of IVP’s study guides. I was glad to see they kept this feature–a great place to go for substantive daily Bible reading and study.
• “Discussion guides” leads to a page showing over sixty discussion guides for books published by IVP, a great resource if you are looking for a book to discuss in a group.

If you go to a page for a book, you will find a good size rendering of the cover, publication data including page counts and ISBN numbers, a discounted price and order button. Below these are a description of the book, endorsements, and an author profile. To the right of these are a table of contents, a press kit link for the book (downloadable PDF), related IVP books, and other books by the author published by IVP. One thing I noted that they eliminated from the former website were Goodreads reviews from readers (I suppose one can go to Goodreads for these). Overall, this makes for a cleaner appearance of these pages.

I suspect they are still refining some features on the site. I discovered that clicking on the “Hard Saying of the Day” takes one to a “this page does not exist” page.  When the site first went up, I was dismayed that the former links to the site I had used for many of the books I reviewed had the same problem. Now when you click on links for a book under the old website system, they forward to the current site for the book. Thanks for fixing that,  IVP, so that I don’t have hundreds of links that don’t work on my blog! I should also note that I have not tried using the mobile version of the site extensively. I did discover that for some reason, when I tried entering something in the searchbar, I could not keep the search bar or my Android keyboard visible, and thus could not search. At this point, I would say the site feels more computer- than mobile-friendly.

All in all, IVP has created a new, very up to date looking site with a clean appearance, easy navigability, and many features for book buyers and for readers. There are no pop-ups or overlay ads that can be so annoying. What one finds is a site that makes getting information about a book you might be interested in easy, allows you to order that book, or in many cases, an e-book easily (which provides a higher return to the publisher than going to that big online seller) and offers some wonderful free resources to enhance your devotional and reading life.