A major upgrade to the Mary Ferrell Foundation website is planned for later this April. This revision will unlock many of the new features developed for the JFK Assassination Archive disk project developed more than a year ago.

Many of the improvements, such as enhanced versions of the Mary Ferrell Database, the enhanced Photo Archive, the new Dealey Plaza Witness Database, and improvements to the document viewer, will be available to all visitors. Other improvements, mainly the search engine enhancements, will be available only to paid members, since the search engine is restricted to such members (except for the few free complimentary searches per session open to everyone).

Summary of Improvements:

• Better navigation. Improved navigation to site pages and within documents. Includes new navigation menu available from any page.
• Improved Document Viewer. Smooth zooming of document pages, plus other new features.
• New Search Engine. A powerful new search engine with several new features and a more flexible search results page.
• RIF Tools. Improved research tools for RIF-based documents. RIF-based documents have a new tab with RIF form details, and these include "more like this" links.
• Mary Ferrell Database. Enhanced version of the Mary Ferrell Database. Many source references are linked directly to their source documents.
• Dealey Plaza Witness Database. New resource: Stewart Galanor's Dealey Plaza Witness Database, with integrated search.
• Photo Archive. An enhanced Photo Archive, featuring scrolling galleries. Photo meta-data may now be searched.
• and more.....

Membership System Changes:

• Open to All Visitors. As always, every page of the site is accessible to all visitors. Memberships serve only to unlock search tools and access to PDF copies of documents.
• Your Membership Continues. Existing Supporting and Pro memberships will remain active, and receive all the new features.
• Reduced Membership Prices. Membership prices will be reduced: Supporting memberships will cost $34.95 per year (a $5 reduction), and Pro memberships will cost $79.95 per year (a $20 reduction)
• PDF Access - Pro only; no purchase. PDF files may no longer be purchased. Pro memberships have unlimited free PDF sccess as always. If you desire PDF copies of documents, consider upgrading to a Pro account (at the new reduced price). If you have purchased PDF files and not yet saved them to your hard disk, please do so now.
• Free Memberships Discontinued. Free memberships offer no access beyond what is available to non-members, and will be discontinued. Existing Free memberships which are active or only recently expired will be retained, but use of them is optional.

Despite the list above, the site will be very familiar to existing users - the same overall look and feel, and the same body of documents, essays, Starting Points, Resources, and the rest.

When the site upgrade is complete, there will be additional Help pages describing some of the enhancements, with further information about them to follow.

I hope the new tools and capabilities will be useful to all.

- Rex Bradford, President, Mary Ferrell Foundation