Alasdair Verschoyle, a book publisher and retailer of some 40 years, had long had the vision of creating a Community-centric bookstore dedicated to championing Irish Literature and Culture.
The vision had been fully formed for a long time, it was just a matter of finding the right vehicle to realise the vision. Alasdair’s son was instrumental in bringing the two parties together, after he had experienced Affino at work for himself, and decided that Affino would be the perfect platform for delivering the Irish Books Direct experience. The key criteria were not just the capabilities of the system, but also the managability of the system by a very small team.
To start off with, Alasdair would lead the team, with Jenny Coughlan and Lorna Lawless responsible for managing the site on a day-to-day basis. Further staff will be added when the need arises, but most Affino owners / users are surprised by how few personnel you need to run a busy and successful Affino Social Commerce site.
Comrz worked with Alasdair to ensure that he ended up with the best possible logo and positioning statement to underline his vision. Comrz then oversaw the design of the site and some custom template creation, but pretty much the bulk of the work was done by the team of 3.
Alasdair’s team did the site build and full design implementation, including content population. Key to the cultural side of the site is the various author interviews and exposé blog posts - which Alasdair overseas. The idea is to grow the contributor base, and get more and more aficionados involved in participating within the Community, and in part running the Community.
It’s still early days on the site, but all the main elements are present and correct; later iterations will see Book Reading / Review groups, much like there exists on the Gateshead Libraries website; I’m sure Irish Books Direct will also make use of the innovative Group Chat Design Element which has just been introduced on Eric Prydz’s Forums, and will be part of the next general update release - due by the end of this month.
"Affino has really been the perfect vehicle for this project, not just because of its scope of functionality or integration abilities, but more because of its ease of use and managability" said Alasdair Verschoyle, Founder and CEO of Irish Books Direct
A store with personality is a rare breed, and one with personality and social consciousness - a genuine sense of Community, is rarer still, but that is what we believe Irish Books Direct has achieved. Even though there is a lot in place already, there are several more innovations to come; we look particularly forward to witnessing the growth in members of this online Community. The site has already received support from the Kildare County Enterprise Board - for its championing of Irish Culture; I expect to see several more badges of support within the next few months.
