Tyndale Society Website
March 2002
The Tyndale Society has been present on the World Wide Web for a few years now and the website is continually growing with new material. The address is:
http://www.tyndale.org
The website can be viewed by users connected to the internet anywhere in the world. It has been registered with as many search engines and directories as possible and we have been exchanging “links” with related websites from anywhere in the world.
The left-hand side of each web page has a navigation panel with links to major sections of the site. To help visitors find what they are looking for quickly, a type-in search field features at the top of the navigation panel. The site is automatically re-indexed each Wednesday and I can rebuild the index manually at any time too.
The right-hand side of each web page displays the content of the section. The first page of our site is a general introduction to the aims of the Tyndale Society and to William Tyndale. There are other pages with more information about the Society and how to join. The focus of our website is the Tyndale Society in the first instance, rather than William Tyndale. The first page should make this plain. There are other websites such as www.williamtyndale.com that centre on the man. We also have visitors to our site who apparently expect to have reached the website of Tyndale House Publishers. As a commercial venture their site name ends in “.com”, www.tyndale.com. Because the Tyndale Society is a charity and an organization, our site name ends in “.org”.
The Events section changes most often as new events are listed with information about them and past events are removed. In most web browsers, clicking on the Events link in the navigation panel will expand the link into the list of events. One can then click on the individual item and go directly to further information about the event. In a few browsers, the Events link takes one to a page of Events information. It might be an idea for the future to set up a separate page of reports on events. At the moment write-ups appear in the Journal and articles from the Journal are gradually appearing at the website.
The Publications link works in a similar fashion. The tables of content for Tyndale Society Journals are displayed at our website along with the full text of a number of articles. Readers should be able to gain an idea of the interests of the Society. The tables of content for the academic journal of the Society, Reformation, have also been posted on the website. For those issues in which there were abstracts, these too, have been put up on the site.
By popular demand a Genealogy section has been added. Over 100 individuals in the Tyndale family tree have been organized for the web. There are background papers by Tyndale family members and others. Of course, William never married and had no children but the family line through his sister Margaret gave rise to American President Zachary Taylor and to American Civil War General Robert E. Lee so there is much known about this branch of the family tree. The family line through William’s brother Edward is also illustrious and has been delineated by descendants. I am indebted to several people who have spontaneously contributed details and as soon as possible more will be mounted at the website.
The very nature of the world wide web is “links” highlighted text or images that one clicks on to go to another web page, website or section of a web page. And so it seemed that the Tyndale Society website could not be complete without an entire section devoted to “links”. Our Links page contains a list of websites that may be of interest to our website visitors. There is a form at the bottom for visitors to suggest a new link. After checking the suggested website, the link is added to our page. There are so many links now, that it will soon be necessary to subdivide them into groups. The website currently announces a few of the items for sale through the Society’s office. This area of the website will expand in the next few weeks. We will be exploring the possibility of enabling secure transactions online so that visitors could order online.
We are also exploring the addition of a “discussion board” to the website. This would be a forum for posting messages related to the work and interests of the Society. Discussion could focus on Society events for example. Because Tyndale Society members live around the world and because the website exists to bring the Society to the internet world, a message board seems more appropriate than a “chat room” which expects users to be using their computers at the same time.
Although not the principal concern of the website, there is a link to an attractive section on the life and work of William Tyndale. These pages constituted a separate web project that has been donated to our site.
In all, it is hoped that the website adequately reflects the work and interests of the Tyndale Society and I welcome suggestions for further development.