Opening the doors to the new store means that for the first time the nearly 600 titles published and distributed by Pathfinder in nine languages will be available online. The store contains a description of each Pathfinder title so that working people and youth who are opposing capitalism's assaults on workers' rights and conditions, working to build revolutionary organizations, and seeking to learn about struggles around the world can find books and pamphlets they need. As word of this international revolutionary bookstore gets out, working people, and students looking for the lessons of past struggles, the writings of working-class leaders, and the essential works of Marxism can go online to directly order from Pathfinder's arsenal of publications.

The launching of pathfinderpress.com is one way supporters of the publishing house are helping to meet Pathfinder's goal of selling $500,000 worth of revolutionary literature between Jan. 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002.

Pat Smith, a volunteer in New York, designed the web site as an electronic bookstore with many of the features available at other online booksellers. The home page will feature new and noteworthy titles by Pathfinder (books and pamphlets on imperialism and war will be displayed in January), as well as the publisher's regular Books of the Month special discounts. Visitors will be able to browse by author, subject, or language. Soon afterwards they will also be able to browse by title as well, and enter keywords on the "search" page to find books related to specified topics.

The online store has an electronic shopping cart so readers can browse and collect the books and pamphlets they want to purchase, before proceeding to the "check out" page to submit an order.

A big contribution was made to the web site by a group of volunteers who collected and entered data on every title in Pathfinder's printed catalog and order form. Tom Tomasko, who organized the team, said about a dozen volunteers in the United States and Ireland entered the information and checked it for accuracy.

Other volunteers from San Francisco to Chicago and Stockholm, Sweden--and other cities in between--scanned more than 200 book covers and created colorful miniature web images to accompany the book information. Most of these volunteers had never done this type of work previously, but through their enthusiasm and determination, learned the skills they needed to use the tools and get the job done.

So bring in the New Year by logging on, exploring the new store, and ordering books from Pathfinder!  
 
 
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