The IBEX History website is designed to be used by a wide range of individuals with varying degrees of expertise in using computers and with very different levels of familiarity with East St. Louis and its history.

To address the former consideration, the entire website has been designed to be relatively simple to use. The information contained here can usually be accessed in several different ways from any level of the website. Navigation bars are easy to
use and are available from almost any location within the site. To the fullest extent possible, we have tried to keep things self-explanatory and as simple to use as possible without sacrificing functionality.

To address the different levels of historical knowledge that users bring to the site, we have arranged it in three levels, each of which assumes a different degree of familiarity with the area.

The most basic level is organized around the WPA Guidebook for East St. Louis written in 1937. An edited and annotated version of this unpublished work is available here so that tourists, students or other people who may not know much about East St. LouisÕs history can get a concise overview. There is not much detail to be found at this level because it is designed for those who want to get the general facts without getting bogged down in the specific details. It is recommended that first-time users or those unfamiliar with East St. Louis begin their visit here.

The intermediate level is designed for students and for those who already possess some knowledge of the East St. Louis area (including those who have already perused the Guidebook described above). This level consists of a map-based section, a timeline, and a "Voices" sectionÉeach of which is described elsewhere. Users who want to learn more about the area or begin researching a particular topic should probably spend some time here.

The highest level is the IBEX Archive. Here the material, gathered from a wide variety of sources, is arranged as if it were in a library. Primary sources are available and much care has gone into maintaining the actual look and integrity of the original paper source documents. A search engine can be used to look for keywords in this section and a database-driven card catalog system can be used for more complex searches. This section is intended to be used by people who want to look at the actual sources from which the information found throughout this site has been gathered, by students and scholars conducting more specialized research on the East St. LouisÕs history, or by users who (after looking through the other sections of the website) want to get even more detailed information or hear the perspectives of others.