Digital Philatelic Resources

Is there sufficient interest in information on and discussion about digital philatelic resources among members of this board to support a topic on this subject?

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Doesn't the Philatelic Book, Reference, Supply and Software subforum cover this topic?

Thank you for the move. Being new to the forum I was not sure where to place this. Personally, my interests are with being able to go on line and do research from the comfort and convenience of my home. Something useful on almost any research topic or area of interest can now be accessed digitally. The challenge is knowing where to look.

Do post links you think are useful, it would be appreciated. Still, doing your own search is the best way, in my opinion. That said, I still bookmark a lot but end up purging a fair amount of dead links every couple of years.

I was recently researching what are called the Hialeah forgeries, modern fakes sold as reproductions on ebay circa 2004 (the original seller is now banned though the fakes are still available). Searches led to a lot of brief mentions but no details plus many sites giving dead links. I did find one site that was useful. I can see if you want to cut to the chase, being able to go directly there via a posted link is key. But site addresses change or sites close so often that a link on a board usually has a finite life. Updating links is rarely done. You may remember when AOL dumped all their free site accounts; many excellent sites never moved and were gone forever. That's the internet.

My kind of collecting, focusing on identifying cities/towns where stamps have been canceled, is possible to do in far less time using digital resources than would be possible using printed resources. Seems to me that that any philatelist who needs to seek info would agree that this is a good suggestion.

I think that there are two important factors that are influencing this issue.

First, the hobby has traditionally been a very slow adopter of technology. I assume there are several reason including the fact the demographics of the hobby favor older, less technology-centric people.

Second is that this hobby has a significant history of limiting access to information. To a large degree this is driven by money on both the supplier side and the hobbyist side. Suppliers make money by selling catalogs and other reference materials. Hobbyists make money by not sharing their information and thereby limiting competition. This is why many hobbyists will not offer the dealers names they use or how to spot a rarer variety. Many hobbyists have invested a lot of time and money into their education and are not willing to simply give it to other hobbyists.

It has been interesting to watch how the hobby has tried to integrate with the internet. Many organizations resisted making the transition and/or offer websites with little information or only a method for ordering hardcopy information. (For example, the APS website has a way to purchase 67 hardcopy 'first rate publications' online but they do not offer the same information in a digital download format.) The internet user's expectation is to be able to access the information they want in real-time 24/7/365. Our hobby is still struggling to figure this out and how to make it happen.
Don




I can only concur... Though it is easy to say 'google it', very few people besides 'geeks' and professional researchers know/understand that there is a massive 'dark web' that search engines do not cover. Websites that are for subscribers only (like philatelic magazines) are prime example of content that does not show up on search engine results. Another example of 'dark web' are search based services such as Global Philatelic Library... It's very imperfect world we live in.

-k-

Yes, "... this hobby has a significant history of limiting access to information." not to mention the economics of knowing something few others do.

We are living through an era of a perfect storm in philately. Technology makes it easier to learn and share knowledge at the same time the commercial market for books containing it is shrinking (along with the number of folks in our hobby).

The increasing digital availability of old newspapers and post office and other governmental documents gives more collectors the ability to research their questions without travel or purchasing an extensive library.

Hopefully this web site and topic will further conversation among us digital postal historians

It is very much appreciated that many stamp societies and specialist groups have their journals online for free especially older issues given that it took them a lot of time and effort to do this. It is hoped that they could also offer some of their book publications in digital form too which could make it less expensive for collectors to buy, especially regarding philatelic exhibits.

I have long wished for Amos Publishing to offer subscription access to an on-line digital version of the U.S. Scott Specialized Catalogue. This could be done by charging an annual fee - for either one continuous 12 month calendar year or for the October to October life cycle of the latest issue of the catalogue.

Don and others:

In spite of probably being one of the last technology-impaired collectors in the US of A (no smart phone but two laptops), I understand Don's vision to move much of the web presence to mobile devices. But I would not want to see this move made at the expense of the vast library of PDF based books, journals, and other resources currently available on the internet. The two media formats should have some common grounds for co-existence.

For immediate information, mobile devices and appropriate Apps or web pages are desirable. But for serious, extensive reading, I'll go with my Laptop (Who among you wants to read War and Peace on his smartphone?). For long term knowledge and large publications, I see nothing wrong with having these philatelic publications available in PDF format - which is available to virtually anyone with the sense to turn on a computer, or additionally in one of the current ePub formats. The advantage of PDF is that it has been around a long time, is robust, and everyone knows how to use it.

AND, even more important, should the researcher actually download the publication's PDF file to his computer, he will have it forever, or at least until his un-backed up disk crashes, and will not be at the whim of some website manager.

How many of you can't find a title on Google Books that you found last year?

While I might visit the APS or another philatelic website for a quick search for information, for long term research references, I'll stay with my PDF files.

What I believe is currently needed, is what I think hoosierboy was trying to suggest in an earlier post, is that there should be some common central vehicle to bring together all of the available information about the internet locations for all philatelic resources and postal history resources under some form of a common umbrella.

The Collectors Club of Chicago has a number of their published books available for free downloading at their site. The US Classics site has another group of useful publications. The StampSmarter web site has more. But there is no one single location where can one go today and learn about all of these -- and the vast multitude of materials in Google Books and other digital libraries.

I made an effort several years ago to document the internet locations of many of the official publications of the US Post Office Department and US Postal Service. My approach was to create a group of PDF files, with one for each major USPOD series. e.g.: The Official Postal Guide, Reports of the Postmaster General, etc., with the name of the publication, it's year of publication, and one or more URL links to that publication. I stored a version of these files on the Texas Postal History Society website at

http://www.texascovers.org/featured-articles/

Anyone can download these files to their computer. All that is needed is to open the file locally (I keep mine in a folder on my desktop), find the particular volume of interest, and select that URL. BINGO !, I'm there.

I've done these for other groups of digital books related to my other research interests, but at the present they are not generally available.

Another possible solution, one that might be more viable in the long run, is for the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL), or their Union Catalog Consortium, to create links to these digital on-line publications, as part of their entry for that publication in their catalog record. The APRL has already begun to include some references to digital publications (there is a selection box on their Advanced Search page to retrieve only digital publications), and its should be much easier to add the appropriate entry in these Union Catalog entries than create an entry on some webpage somewhere. Besides, most knowledgeable researchers will check the Union Catalog first or second anyway.

I appreciate that such effort will cost some someone some resources, so I offer it only as a suggestion. But I suspect that there are many readers who would gladly provide the APRL with a list of Titles and their internet location URL for publications they have found in their searching, and would like to see them included in the Union Catalog.

Constructive discussion welcomed !

Mike

Hi Mike,
Agreed. But currently there is no technology solution for reading PDF files on mobile devices. The very point of the PDF specification was that it retained its formatting independent upon the platform it was being viewed upon. This is the exact opposite of responsive web design where everything on a page shifts and changes based upon the device it is being viewed upon. And while there has been some discussion about making a PDF format that is 'responsive' in my opinion this will not happen. But all is not lost…

The reason that mobile has overtaken and passed desktop computing is simple; people want access to their information all the time, not just when they are sitting in front of their desks. But our discussion regarding the evolution to mobile devices should not be limited by the I/O (Input/Output) of today. The next technology advances that will occur will represent vast improvements in I/O. On the Input side the next generation will be voice recognition/virtual keyboards and on the Output side the next generation will be projected virtual screens. From your phone or watch you will be able to project a large monitor; one that will easily display a legacy PDF in full size or project a full keyboard onto any flat surface. And instead of a mouse you will use voice commands to input navigation and to get answers to questions.

Technology moves fast, frankly the details of whatever widget or operating system is the latest and greatest is not really important when planning the future or a company or organization. But what is critically important are the following underlying competencies; having a good vision, having strong in-house IT resources, and having a decent online traffic market share. Having these things in place positions company or organization to meet the challenges of a dynamic technology landscape.
Don

I think some are hesitant to invest in new technology because it takes effort, may take some time, and by then it out date.

Digital is good , but if everything is free, writers may be less interested . I will say they are actually not anymore, we don't see too much highly specialised book today.

Hi Don,

My only disagreement with your post is that I am not yet convinced that philatelic (or any) researchers are going to want to read or examine large volumes of information (books), on mobile devices that you and I are likely to see in the next few years, especially in environments where those mobile devices are more usable than the traditional computer. You present some interesting predictions, and I've been around computers long enough to believe that you have likely identified many of the trends to expect, but the time frame is unknown.

The transition between the original (e.g., MS Word, or paper) format to a PDF format is straightforward and well understood. Virtually any contemporary philatelic author of today knows how to transform the original source for his writing to either paper or PDF format -- if he so chooses. This is not the case for creating the equivalent product for use with mobile media, even assuming that he wanted to do so.

However, we have a huge amount of legacy information in paper and PDF formats, and for example, no one is going to convert the 200 years worth of US Post Office Department Postal Laws and Regulations to some modern, mobile device readable format.

What about the digital editions (PDF) of books you are hosting on the Stamp Smarter website, e.g., Brookman, Johl, and others. Are these books really serious candidates for conversion to a readable format on a smart phone?

As the mobile media technology matures and becomes more of a commodity capability than a specialized tool, more writer may well to chose that as their final format of choice.

I think we have to consider that the future philatelist may well live in two (or possibly more) different digital environments, and will switch between them depending on his need and location. One is his mobile device, the other is the computer of today. Some tasks are well suited for one or the other but not both. At a show, having one's "inventory" available on the smart phone is great, but once home, and writing up his purchases for the album or exhibit, he is going to go back to his computer.

As one example from recent experience. I can easily visualize myself reading a new edition of Linn's Stamp News on a smart- phone while waiting in a doctor's office or some similar "time sink" environment. But my recent project to create a index identifying all of the regular philatelic columns published in the past ten years of Linn's using their digital archive of these issues would be folly on a smart-phone.

And how should such information be made available to the community? Is it going to be cost-effective to create information in multiple formats, unless it can be done automatically? Or should the writer determine the format based on how he anticipates his material would be used by his audience?

Mike

I am an avid user of PDFs on my iPad. I have well in excess of 100 philatelic books and auction catalogues. Some are downloaded from the internet such as from the Chicago Collectors Club and the US Classics Society. Others have been made by me. The greatest advantage is to be able to search an OCR work when you don't know where to look. I don't read cover to cover, but I look for information. The ability to look through several books quickly is a great help. It also keeps my desk from becoming cluttered. Once you learn how to use the PDFs it is the only way to go.