Author's Note

In early 1994, just after I had completed the bulk of my first Web-based exhibit, A Tourist Expedition to Antarctica, I decided to direct my efforts toward helping other members of the University of Michigan community create their own Web sites. One of the ways I sought to do this was to create a collection of digitized photographs that could be used by members of the University of Michigan community in their own projects. (At that time, there were extremely few images of the University freely available.)

By April 1994, I had completed the first section of an exhibit which I called Ann Arbor: A Personal Perspective. This section focused on the university's Central Campus, and included roughly 150 photographs. It was my hope that others would take these images and use them to create bigger and better information products reflecting the university and Ann Arbor. As schools and colleges within the university created their sites, they often linked to relevent sections of my exhibit. By 1995, my Ann Arbor photo collection had grown to include North Campus and some of the surrounding countryside. Jim Rees helped by creating his own online collections of photographs from downtown Ann Arbor.

In 1996, on leaving the University and becoming a corporate Webmaster in Ann Arbor, I felt that it was time to update my "Ann Arbor Photo Tour" with a professional look, more photos, and new features. Postcards from Ann Arbor is the result.

From April through October 1996, I've been seen walking around Ann Arbor snapping photos with my little Canon camera, from the farmer's market at Kerrytown to the new Media Union on North Campus; from Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger to Gratzi and the Gandy Dancer. At home, I've spent many evenings with the resulting PhotoCDs (scanned by the University's Biomedical Communications unit), using Adobe Photoshop and my trusty Power Macintosh computer to scale, crop, color balance and adjust the contrast on each image for optimal on-line display. I edited the HTML pages using Apple's SimpleText editor. ("Handcrafted with pride!") I've used Netscape Navigator 2.02 as my display tool, with spot checking in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and NCSA Mosaic 2.0.1.

I hope you enjoy the results of this work. It's been a real pleasure.

Even more enjoyable have been the notes I've received from former Ann Arborites around the world, who've expressed their pleasure at finding this little bit of Ann Arbor on the net. These postcards are for all of you!

-- Lee Liming (lliming@tir.com)