10 years of EXPONET

EXPONET virtual philatelic exhibition celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. From only few exhibits being displayed in 2004, it grew up to almost 900 exhibits nowadays. These exhibits cover the various areas of philately from many countries and philatelic topics. To enable visitors a better search among such amount of exhibits,  it was necessary to completely change the programming solution. The new one is a database oriented solution and it started this spring. The new system is ready for possible future expansion. 
What is EXPONET?
EXPONET – virtual philatelic exhibition – is an Internet space designed for storing, exhibiting, searching and studying the electronically displayed philatelic material (exhibits). You find here number of interesting philatelic presentations that can introduce and document various areas of philately together with many competitive exhibits (prepared according to the FIP rules). The displayed exhibits are often highly rated on the regular philatelic exhibitions. EXPONET is a non-competitive exhibition promoting the philately as well as inspiring and instructing the visitors to create their own stamp exhibits. It is on the same time an easy way for the exhibitors to present their collecting and study results to the philatelic public. In contrast to the physical stamp exhibitions, the exhibits are permanently placed at EXPONET without any damage to the exhibited materials. The virtual exhibition is available to visitors from around the world with an easy access from their home or during the trips. EXPONET contains both the currently existing as well as older no more existing exhibits. 
Basic functions of the new EXPONET
The new EXPONET solution has been especially aimed at the user-friendly searching and displaying of the virtual exhibits. A visitor can select a proper language for communication (currently Czech, English and German, but it is possible to add other languages as well). Homepage gives a direct access to the most recently supplemented or updated exhibits for every visitor.
The most important way of searching the exhibits follows your philatelic interest and simultaneously combines up to the four basic criteria: territory, subject, time period and EXPONET exhibition class. These criteria are further divided into three levels enabling an easy short-listing of the researched exhibits to each visitor. The result should be a short list of exhibits matching your expectations about what you want to see.
Territorial classification – means the territory significantly treated in the exhibit. The top level of the criteria has been reserved for the continents followed by the individual countries, clusters and regions in lower levels, considering the regional units or time frame of the particular territory. The territories with a larger number of exhibits (showed at EXPONET) have been structured in more details, respecting historical-political development (territorial and time focused ones).
Subject classification – includes the basic classification by philatelic subjects considering all postal history, as well as in thematic topics. The potential interconnections of the traditional, postal history and even thematic exhibits have been considered.
Time period – the top classification considers three time periods defined by the milestones of UPU foundation in 1874 and the WWII end in 1945. The three periods have been further divided into the shorter time eras.
EXPONET exhibition class – this criterion has been primarily based on the generally used exhibition classes at regular philatelic exhibitions, but it was necessary to slightly modify the classes in order to highlight the fact, that not all the exhibits displayed at EXPONET are the competitive exhibits exactly matching the criteria for standard philatelic exhibitions. This affects also the older (originally competitive) exhibits created years ago, but not complying with the current regulations. In addition, a number of competitive exhibits have been assigned to different exhibition classes on the different stamp shows and their unique classification might be therefore difficult. EXPONET could be a great place for presentation of the special exhibits prepared for introduction to a certain philatelic area or for promotion of philately in general. This is why a special term “EXPONET exhibition class” has been used to prevent any misunderstanding about classification of such type of the exhibits. The size of the exhibit has not been considered important at a top level of this criterion. The size of the displayed presentations can be selected in the lower level (as one-frame exhibits, exhibits of standard or non-standard extend or Youth exhibits).
These four basic criteria are based on a defined structure, according to which every exhibit was classified. Of-course, not any displayed exhibit could be simply categorized into a defined structure, no matter how precise it is. To enable a better searching for the exhibits, it was necessary to use multiple criteria classification respecting the fact that the exhibit could more or less match the assigned criteria. For searching exhibits each basic criterion could be used separately or could be combined with other ones (especially when it is required to reduce the resulted list).
In addition, more searching functions could be used: by exhibitor’s name or country, by exhibit registration number, the most visited exhibits or the most recent exhibits.
How could be EXPONET used?
EXPONET currently introduces a lot of exhibits focused to Czechoslovak territory. For example, if you select Europe and Czechoslovakia (after 1918) by the territory criterion, you will receive a list of about 160 exhibits and if you select exhibits from Austria-Hungary (up to 1918) oriented on Czech or Slovak territory, the result will be about 50 another exhibits (even if some of them could might apply on Czechoslovak territory). Of-course, some of them have been focused mainly on stamp specialisation, some of them on postal history or even on postal stationery describing in addition various time periods. In any case it is a lot of exhibits for looking at one time and it could be difficult to decide, where to start. But when you try to combine the basic criteria for selection, you can reasonably reduce the list. To do that you just employ the function “Selection of exhibits by all four criteria simultaneously“
If you only use the 3rd level of territory criterion, it will get you a possibility to restrict the list to a certain important time period of Czechoslovak history. But combining the criteria for example with the philatelic subject or EXPONET class criterion brings a shorter list of results. Similarly using the time period criterion could be of help. For better understanding how to efficiently use all these criteria, we recommend you to go first through the menu.
It is obvious that many exhibits come from the Czech collectors, however a lot of foreign collectors display their exhibits at EXPONET too. In any case we look for other more international exhibits. As much territories and interesting philatelic subjects as possible makes EXPONET a better place. It is important that this system is not limited to the competitive exhibits only. It can be used for example for sharing the results of collectors’ effort or for asking the other collectors for assistance in research of a philatelic area. We believe that EXPONET is a good place for the presentations explaining the specialized philatelic areas. A very good example of such approach is the Petr Gebauer exhibit of “Czech postal agencies 1900-1958”. This material is very interesting for collecting, but it is difficult to be displayed at a real philatelic exhibition, because it is very sensitive of the daily light and its repeated exhibiting might lead to destruction of the material. Another interesting example you can see at the virtual exhibition is the presentation of ”Letters and postcards with perfins used by companies in Danzig” prepared by Mr. Peter Witkop of Germany. This is even “double virtual” exhibit, because such portion of interesting covers from Danzig can’t be gathered by a single collector, but it is a mutual exhibit of more collectors just put together by Mr. Witkop. This way of philatelic presentation could be appreciated by more collectors.
Exhibiting at EXPONET brings advantages not only to the visitors, but also the exhibitors. EXPONET is a recognized philatelic website having a heavy visitors’ rate of philatelic collectors coming from all the continents. Displaying your exhibit here means you introduce it to the wide philatelic audience and make your exhibit known worldwide. In the current terms, EXPONET is a social network for the philatelic exhibits, where you can look and sort the existing exhibits almost on every thinkable topic or territory.  The broad popularity of the EXPONET is often used by the exhibitors, who want to introduce their exhibits to the experts and jurymen before they enter a formal philatelic exhibition – you can get a feedback, how to improve your exhibit before being officially evaluated by the jury. 
The time, for which the standard philatelic exhibition is open for public, is quite short and after closing the doors, the exhibits live only in memories of the visitors. EXPONET can help: any exhibit can be displayed for unlimited period at the website for a future reference of collectors, who cannot physically visit the exhibition place. There is no additional workload for the exhibition organizers, the exhibitors just deliver together with the exhibit a CD with its scanned version.
Traditional exhibits are usually limited in the scope of presented sheets. But often you will find a topic which could hardly fit into the required scope. One frame exhibits could be too small and 5 frames exhibits could be hardly achieved. There are also collections which are worse to be kept and presented to others, but they are too big requiring a lot of pages and exhibition frames. In all such cases can be EXPONET of help.
Very important advantage of EXPONET is long-term preserving of the philatelic exhibits. Imagine a collector wants to sell or divide his successful exhibit. In fact, the exhibit soon finishes his physical existence, because the displayed material is for example sold at an auction, but it can be still preserved at EXPONET for the future philatelic audience. This can just help when selling it, because more collectors are informed about this possibility and can look through the exhibit in details. EXPONET might be used by auction houses to display and preserve the valuable collections and to introduce the philatelic material to the collectors. Another example is displaying a philatelic exhibit of the deceased collector by his families to honour his philatelic engagement.  The nice examples of this approach are the exhibits of Dolfa Bartosik displayed at the EXPONET by his family.
EXPONET gradually becomes a good source of information and inspiration for all collectors. They can study there various forms of presenting material, its kinds and forms. Arranging material in the form of an exhibit can also be a possible alternative to printed books. Issuing philatelic books is not simple and becomes less effective. If we do not calculate the hours spent preparing such books we may recognise that the printing costs are much higher than the income from the sell. And our aim to make the study available to more collectors would have been hardly achieved. When we display such study as an exhibit at EXPONET, it does not require any printing costs and is simply available to anybody.
Another possibility could be a specialised virtual exhibition focused to a certain specific narrow subject. Collectors of such subject could be scattered around the whole world, so to bring their exhibits to one place in order to organise a specialised exhibition, could be difficult, especially in the current conditions. EXPONET can give the chance to make its virtual form, which can either replace the specialised exhibition or be a first step before organising its physical form and meeting.
Potential example of using EXPONET is a display of the stolen philatelic material by its original owner. Making publically known that a collection has been stolen and displaying it means, every stamp collector or stamp dealer can check, if an item offered to him is really owned by the person, who makes the trade proposal to him.
We are sure, you find much more reasons why to exhibit at EXPONET and why to visit this website! You will find EXPONET at www.exponet.info
Vladimir Munzberger and Lubor Kunc
September 2014