Committee chairs may contact me for advice on setting up a
web site or hosting it on the USStamps.org site. The
Marginal Markings committee has recently set up a
site that
is linked (and indexed) through the USStamps.org site.
I am in the process of setting up databases for information
that can be searched and displayed through the USStamps.org
web site. Recently the
Glossary was
released in database
form and additional efforts are underway. Other information
may be put in an online database as time permits.
I continue my standing offer to other Committees and Study Groups to
publish their own content on the site. Each Committee has its own page
on the site which includes annual reports, links to other sites of
interest and color images associated with articles published in The
Specialist. Committee Chairs can contact me by e-mail
for more information. All USSS members who wish to submit content to
the web site should contact the appropriate Committee or Study Group
chairs to sponsor their submissions.
2002 Annual Board Meeting Committee Report
Our web site has been maintaining the "status quo" for the last year and
a half. I continue to add news and information from The Specialist
monthly as forwarded to me by the Editor. I occasionally receive
additional information from committee chairs to incorporate into the
site. At this point the web site is serving its function - to be a
promotional and recruitment tool for the Society.
The site continues to get a steady stream of visitors. The counter on
the home page recently passed the 25,000 visitor mark just prior to the
site's 3rd anniversary on September 2nd. We are currently getting about
35 distinct visitors per day to the site and about 15 queries per day
using the Search box option on the home page.
Our service provider, pair Networks, recently upgraded service to our
account to give us the ability to implement some additional features on
our web site. I will be evaluating these features over the next couple
of months to see if I can use them to provide additional capabilities
for the site.
I continue my standing offer to other Committees and Study Groups to
publish their own content on the site. Committees and Study Groups can
send me information to post, design their own HTML pages, or send a
pointer to their own web site. Suggestions for content include: color
pictures of items of study, indices or directories of articles and
publications written by Committee members, tables or charts related to
committee studies, etc.
2001 Annual Board Meeting Committee Report
The biggest news for the web site is that we submitted the site for
evaluation in the annual FIP competition. It was awarded recognition as
a 3-star site. The appropriate FIP competition logo is now displayed on
the home page.
Content continues to be updated monthly, mainly from The Specialist. Committee
reports and color pictures from NAPEX are available online. I've also found a free
service to provide searching capabilities to the
site. The search box is located on the home page.
Another service for the site is that we are listed in a "Stamps Top 50"
list. Initially we ranked around 15th or so. Since then, we have
fallen to the mid-30s. The ranking is updated daily. Use of the web
site has not fallen, but rather, other more high-volume sites have added
themselves to the list.
In the first 11 months of year 2000, we have had approximately 6000
distinct visits to the site, visiting 31,664 pages. The site has had
success as a promotional tool for the society, though I do not have an
exact count of the number of applications submitted using the
application form located at the site.
I continue my standing offer to other Committees and Study Groups to
publish their own content on the site. Committees and Study Groups can
send me information to post, design their own HTML pages, or send a
pointer to their own web site. Suggestions for content include: color
pictures of items of study, indices or directories of articles and
publications written by Committee members, tables or charts related to
committee studies, etc.
2000 Annual Board Meeting Committee Report
The BIA/USSS web site was officially announced with the October issue of
The United States Specialist. It came online with the basic pages for
the following major subsections: The Specialist, News, Events,
Application form, Research Papers and Publications. Since that time, it
has been expanded to include the full 1999 annotated index of The
Specialist, the Research Corner (including an online submission form),
and some Study Group/Committee links and references.
Content is currently derived almost exclusively from The Specialist.
Future enhancements will include a Members' Links page and color
versions of images from The Specialist. I hope that more general
philatelic and/or historical articles from past issues of The Specialist
can be included online along with more Committee and Study Group pages
and possibly some online tools to assist collectors with stamp
identification. Towards this last goal, I started prototyping a
Washington-Franklin issue identifier, but currently there is lack the
time to finish it.
Below are some statistics from the web site through May 23, 2000. What
they show is a general upward trend in activity at the site along with
three major "spurts" of activity: at introduction in October, at the
first of the year, and after a recent article about the site was
published in Linn's in April. The major improvement at the first of the
year was the addition of the 1999 Index of The Specialist and a change
in the site layout and colors. There is no reliable way to determine how
many visitors are one-time or repeat visitors. We do know that eight
applications have been received this year that were printed from the web
site. Of the 10 applications from last year, two or three are probably
from the current site, with the rest applying from the old Dephi site.
