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Their Stamp on History is a website dedicated to people whose images have been on stamps. There is a wide range of actors, athletes, musicians, scientists, etc, who are all given a same summary of their accomplishments and the years of their lives. This site, though it appears professionally done, is actually blog style. Initially I thought that this was a concrete site, but now I’m not sure that the information is 100% accurate.
The National Postal Museum website is by far the most exciting website on Postal history, and provides the best pictures and array of quotes. The site links the user to the permanent exhibits in the Smithsonian building as well as online resources, from War Letters: Lost and Found to stamps devoted to ducks. The museum’s educational website called Aragooffers an online look at stamps and other postal resources. There is also an activity selection that provides word searches, coloring books, puzzles, etc. This site provides a little excitement to a subject that most people would probably find dull.
A recent news article on CNET shows that the United States Postal Service wants to send itself into the future with a link to e-mail. This is interesting because the USPS says it will “route all physical mail to their email accounts”. While the USPS might not have been monopoly in the past, due to companies like FedEx, UPS, and DHL, it is now experiencing major problems in the revenue it generates. Currently most people send e-mails, pay bills online, and converse over the internet, rather than writing letters or using the USPS to pay bills. The article mentions the UPSP linking with Stamps.com and Checklink, and provides sites to both of their websites. This article is useful for developing a sense of where the USPS is trying to go in a world that is moving away from paper services. The site has one graph, no pictures, and no interactive qualities.
Perhaps dry and very dull to look at, the United States Postal Service Historical website is full of useful information about the beginnings of the postal service. The history part of the site has very few pictures, but when the user returns to the homepage, they find more options to explore about the Postal Service, such as women carriers and African American postal workers in the 19th Century. The site provides basic knowledge and background about the Postal Service, but is not a “fun site”, with no interactive movies, audio clips, or massive amounts of pictures. What readers will get is an overview and comprehensive timeline. What I wanted to see was how e-mail has effected the Postal Service, yet it’s history was only through 1994.
About.com took a stab at the history of the United States Postal Service in their “inventors” section. The “Inventors”subcategory delves into why a postal service in the American Colonies was originally though necessary, and goes into depth about it’s founders and execution. The site gives a extensive history of the Post Office itself, whys of transporting mail, and how they developed as technology did, and even mentions why zipcodeswere developed. While the site mentions automation and the process to make mail move faster by machines, it doesn’t mention Internet technology, and the effects of e-mail. There are very few pictures, and no interactive aspects to the site. It is not an exciting site, but it’s information is plentiful/
History in the Digital Age 