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About the Pages At This Site
At the present time the UTAH NATURE STUDY SOCIETY pages are posted on the
personal web site of Sandra Bray, who is responsible for their upkeep and
accuracy. The selected articles appearing here were previously published
in NATURE NEWS NOTES, the official publication of UTAH NATURE STUDY SOCIETY
(UNSS), a non-profit organization.
The illustration on our home page is the work of Janet Williams. The logo on
the schedule page was designed by Jean White. Most of the other sketches
appearing in these pages were drawn by Dorothy K. Platt, but several other
artists also contributed their work (too many to mention -- some unknown to me).
These illustrations were also originally published in NATURE NEWS NOTES, in
handouts prepared for workshops which were sponsored by the organization, or
in calendars prepared over the years to schedule our activities.
As you browse around in these pages, you will notice that they have a
very plain and simple appearance compared to many other web pages that you
may have seen. There are several reasons for this:
- Tradition:
I have attempted to preserve the original "flavor" and appearance
of the NATURE NEWS NOTES by keeping the web pages simple, and by using
mostly black and white sketches, as were used in the original newsletters.
- Time:
A plain and simple page will load much faster onto your computer than
will a page with colored graphics and other high-tech features. Plain
text would be the fastest, but a few line drawings will not slow things
down too much. On the other hand, colored photographs load very slowly on
some computers, so I will probably avoid them on these pages.
- Space:
The web site can contain many more pages if those pages consist only
of text and simple line drawings. Colored photographs are beautiful, but
they take up thousands of bytes of space. On the type of web site we
are using, we don't have that much space available.
- Availability:
People who have computers with older hardware or software may not be able
to access the most up-to-date features of web page design. The more simple
the design, the more available the information will be to the greatest number
of people.
- Personal Preference:
The person preparing web pages has control over their appearance, and
right now most of the pages look about how I want them to -- like they
belong to the UTAH NATURE STUDY SOCIETY. In the future I will probably
decide to try a few different things, and see how they work out. I have
already tried putting a little color on some of the wildflower sketches.
To me, this seems to add to the visual interest of the page, although it may
not be artistically accurate.
Also, on pages which are entirely my own (and which were never previously
published in the NATURE NEWS NOTES) I have begun to include colored
photographs which I have taken on recent outings with the group. As mentioned
above, doing this does have a cost -- these pages take longer to load, the
photos take up lots of space on the website, and some of the older browsers
may not be able to display them correctly. But I am having fun -- I hope I
will be forgiven for experimenting!
If you have any comments, criticisms, or other correspondence (and
especially if you notice any typographical or informational errors), please
send e-mail to
naturenotes@softcom.net
Categorized List of Essays and Articles
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