In July 2002 the first issue of the
Web Design Update Newsletter
was published. This plain text email digest is dedicated to
disseminating news and information about web design. It is
typically published once a week as an adjunct to the
Web
Design Reference
site which
started in 1995.
The purpose of the newsletter is to announce new web site
content. Whenever new articles are linked to the Web Design
Reference site, a Web Design Update newsletter message is sent to
the mailing list. Newsletter topics range from accessibility to
XML. Links include recent articles by knowledgeable authors, as
well as expected pertinent links to updates from major
organizations.
History
The idea for the newsletter was sparked by UMD's Information
Technology Systems and Services, Web Team's revival of its webdev
listserv. Previously Laura Carlson had shared her web design
research and web site updates solely with the ITSS web team via
private email. With the revival of the webdev listserv, the team
asked her to send updates to the mailing list.
The number of subscribers has grown from six people in 2002 to
over 2,500 subscribers today. They hail from the University of
Minnesota, universities throughout the US, plus people from
approximately 40 other countries.
In 2005 we converted our mailing lists from a ListProc server to
a Mailman server. Advantages of this change included
automatic
archiving of posts.
University of Minnesota Campuses