ABOUT THIS SITE
The Equine Newsline
The Newsline started as a mail list from Dr. Jack's address book of horse people who requested to be notified of upcoming events. From time to time interesting information would come down the pipeline that Dr. Jack felt was worthy of sharing, and before long the mail list was receiving regular emails. By 2002, the list had grown to over 600 recipients and managing the list by email had outgrown feasibility. Many emails consisted of attachments and photos which we all know tends to clog up our inboxes and run us over quota. The next hitch in the program were the numerous mails Dr. Jack received weekly asking her to resend certain information that readers wanted to refer back to, but had lost in their email accounts. Thus, on December 13, 2002, the Equine Newsline eNewsletter was first launched. No more bulky mails to manage, and oh those archives are wonderful!
Today, the mail list consists of over 1,800 recipients while the Newsline consists of numerous pages with information of interest to horse owners and enthusiasts in the area about events, clubs, stables, farms, jobs in the equine industry, press releases, successes and news are submitted weekly. All of this needs to be sorted, formatted, and uploaded to the internet, and in many occasions updated to remain current.
Soon, it was felt that a blog could be of use to our readers, enabling them to post items for sale and create an outlet of exchange for the local equestrian community. The blog was well received and used extensively by our readers. Sadly, we were forced to terminate the blog due to the hundreds of spam posts our editors had to sort through every month as there were no features to provide protection from these attacks.
Finally, technology caught up with the issues we faced. A continuously growing member list remains interested in keeping the interaction of the Equine Newsline on the cutting edge. With a current readership of over 1,800 members and submissions being recieved daily, we are at last ready to face these challenges head on with the introduction of the NEW Equine Newsline eNewsletter and Blog, all in one streamlined package! We are proud to announce the "Equine Newsline Bareback Blog".
The new format will allow for articles to be posted as they are received in a journal on the front page. All entries will be archived and can easily be accessed from a link called 'The Bareback Archives'. All previous eNewsletters will be accessible as well from a link called 'The Aged Archives'. There is a section for members to post items for sale, services offered or wanted, or to make announcements. At this time photos cannot be posted on these pages, but we hope to be able to offer that soon.
Once each month we will send an email to our list indexing articles posted. However, readers are encouraged to check the site often as many articles may be dated (such as events or job postings). There are two additional features offered with the new format; 1) you can request a private membership with your own login information and then you will be able to recieve an automatic email whenever new information is posted to the site or 2) you can click on the links at the bottom left navigation bar for RSS Feeds and in so doing a link will appear in your favorites which will provide you with a simple page posting all current journal entries. Both options are simple to stop at any time by just selecting UNSUBSCRIBE in the top of your browser window after logging in, or by deleting the link to your RSS Feed. Easy!
We hope you'll enjoy the new site and find it useful as well as beneficial!
Laurie Harris
Equine Newsline Editor
mail: equine@uark.edu