Inquiring Mind was a semiannual print journal dedicated to the creative transmission of Buddhadharma to the West. In the spirit of this transmission, they wanted an online archive for exploring the 24-year collection of Inquiring Mind journals.
Backstory
In the early aughts, Inquiring Mind wanted to create a website to accompany their journal. I worked with the magazine’s designer, Margery Cantor, to produce an accompanying website for the magazine. The website came out right after each journal and contained a subset of articles with a few online-only additions. It was also a convenient way for them to accept donations. I remained webmaster from 2003 to 2015.
The print magazine was extremely popular owing to the great content and beautiful design. However, after a run of 31 years, the staff decided it was time for other projects and the publication came to an end. But the ending appeared to only have been the first curtain call – there was still great demand for the timeless content. Publisher-turned-financier, Alan Novidor, rallied the troops and raised funds to develop an online archive. The goal was to interlink all articles in all issues from 1991 to 2015. 48 issues.
Andy Gagnon, a WordPress developer with a video game design background, came on board to architect an entire publishing system specific to their content in WordPress. I worked with Andy on the interface and design – trying to do justice to Margery’s original design.
Editor Kim Criswell was guinea-pig-in-chief working with Andy and me to craft tools and systems that would allow her to embark on the endless journey – converting 48 magazines into one online archive.
Kim completed the epic task in 2020, check it out at: InquiringMind.com
Notes to self
There’s no better feeling than doing good work, with super people, for great causes. I’m pretty sure this endeavor balanced out any karmic debt I might have had.