DKPA : Digital Stamp Album of India

An interactive CD created by Salamindia
GPO Box 999, Mumbai - 400 001
India

Salamindia has done a stupendous job of compiling the 1480 stamps issued by India till 1998 as an album. However, this work remains just that; an Album with a display of stamps and a title and date of issue. A little more work would have made it a Digital Encyclopaedia of Indian Stamps and surely worth the Rs. 999/- quoted for it.

CD Description

The CD navigation is through the buttons provided for it like Help, Catalogue, Chronological, Thematic, Philately, Glossary, Credits and Quit. "Help" describes the little instruction that is required to run the CD. The navigation is simple and does not require much help as such.

"Catalogue" pops up a list of years and clicking on the specific year brings up a list of stamps issued in that year. Click on the stamp and you get the stamp image. Click on the image and you get the list again. Simple !

A little bit of text describing the stamp and its technical specifications would have made this album an encyclopaedia. The quality of the stamp is good. But you can hardly do anything about it except a screen capture if you want to use it somewhere. The movie format does not allow you much.

"Chronological" brings up the list of years. Click on the list of years and the first stamp is displayed. Just sit back and relax and the stamps scroll across page by page. Just gaze at them (Nothing else can be done anyway). If you have time, you will be amazed at the beauty and the wide variety of stamps issued by the Department of Posts India. If a stamp catches your attention you can use the Forward or Backward key to look at it some more.

"Thematic" pops up list of stamp themes. The various themes and the number of stamps in each is given below:

Armed Forces - 77, Art -187, Aviation - 44, Fauna - 77, Flora - 65, Gandhi - 20, Independence - 232, International - 175 , Monuments - 136, Personalities - 433, Post - 97, Railways - 22, Science - 90, Sports - 75.

Select a theme and the stamps scroll past you as you wonder at the richness of the Indian postage stamps.

"Philately" gives a brief description of philately and "Glossary" gives a glossary of terms. "Quit" quits the program and gives you the screen shown below.

Suggestions for the next edition

The movie format is not suitable and could be eliminated. Encyclopaedia type of design is more suitable for the CD. CDs available in the market today have the facility to search, cut and paste, bookmark and Internet access for more information. Inclusion of the text describing the stamp and its specification is a must to make it attractive to a philatelist. The price is too high for the limited information now provided. Facility to update the information for the years to come from the internet would be a welcome and necessary feature.