Biblioteca Científica Postal

Visualizing the United Nations’ 2001 “Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations” Through Postage Stamp Issues

Handbook of the Changing World Language Map — Cham: Springer — 2020 — С. 1037–1045

Throughout United Nations’ history, the organization has celebrated “years” for many humanitarian, environmental, and human welfare concerns. All these efforts relate to the organization’s major goals of promoting inclusion, diversity, security, and peace. The UN declared that 2001 would be “Year of Dialogue among Civilizations” to call attention to the importance of supporting communication in its various forms among peoples around the world through a common stamp design that appeared in 60 countries. This chapter explores the background to this year, its provisions, and examples of stamp issues.

Promoting the National Past. Archaeology and Tourism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

A History of Archaeological Tourism — Cham: Springer — 2019 — С. 57–83

Chapter 4 focuses on archaeological tourism between the 1870s and the early decades of the twentieth century. It starts by pointing to the widening of the social base interested in archaeological tourism, a growth of interest that explains the increase in visitor numbers at archaeological sites. This led in some sites to new ways of controlling access to them. The development of photography in these years promoted new ways of seeing that were popularized by several means and, in particular, by the widespread use of postcards. It is in this period that the souvenir became common, competing in the market with the sale of actual antiquities and fakes. New tourist destinations appeared, including North Africa, India and Mexico. The national interest in the antiquities of the own nation, however, also grew in the richest countries of the world, those that provided the highest number of tourists. This is illustrated by two archaeological sites opened for visitors at that time and about which some evidence has survived: Stonehenge and Ampurias. Ancient Roman theaters and amphitheaters also see new, alternative uses, in the framework of archaeological tourism, for their use for performances began in this period.

Correction: A visual reading of the heritage and worldviews of new states through postage stamps: United Arab Emirates (1972–2023)

GeoJournal — 2024 — Т. 89 — № 6 — С. 1–2

The Nagel-Hempel Correspondence (1935–1985)

Ernest Nagel on Science and Philosophy — Springer — 2025

This chapter contains the Nagel-Hempel correspondence from 1935 to 1985.

Toward Complete Digitalisation of Postal Items Clearance in the Republic of Croatia

New Technologies, Development and Application VII — Springer — 2024

The initial idea of this paper is determining the need and possibilities of the complete digitalisation of postalitems clearance (collection, acceptance, receiving, reception phase). Although many postal service providers have already digitalised a significant portion of their technological processes, including the clearance of postal items, it hasn’t been completed yet. There are certain situations that require traditional manual completion of requests/data for sending postal items. This unnecessarily burdens collection capacities, increases the time needed for providing postal service (although it is being measured only after the collection of the postal item), what proportionally affects the quality of service and customer satisfaction, regardless objectively the measured or “only” the subjectively experienced. Significant differences exist among postal service providers, depending on the type of users and the type of postal items/services. The paper analyses relevant examples for the situation in the Republic of Croatia. The achieved level of digitalisation, not only in the society as a whole but among almost all postal service providers as well, represents a solid foundation for extending this approach to the remaining part of the postal items collection. In addition to reducing the negative effects, such efforts would enable potentials for further automation of postal processes, standardisation of procedures, and sharing of certain network resources by multiple postal operators, bringing various benefits to both users and postal service providers as well.

Is the Universal Service for “Letters” Sustainable?

Service Challenges, Business Opportunities, and Regulatory Responses in the Postal Sector — Springer — 2024

Article 3 of the EU’s Postal Directive still prescribes the provision of a universal service for “items of correspondence,” which guarantees: not less than five working days a week, one clearance, and one delivery to the home or premises of every natural or legal person. Yet many countries are deviating from this traditional model of postal service, and postal service providers are focusing more on parcel and e-commerce delivery, which is perceived as more profitable. This chapter questions whether the focus on parcel and e-commerce delivery is detrimental to the sustainable provision of the traditional letter post and suggests changes to the universal postal obligations needed to ensure the needs of future generations are met.

Lessons Learned from USPS’s Requests for Prices Increases to Offset Inflation

Service Challenges, Business Opportunities, and Regulatory Responses in the Postal Sector — Cham: Springer — 2024 — С. 145–157

The inflation rate in the United States was more than 9% in 2022. This was the highest rate since 1982, and much higher than the rate in recent years. This spike occurred a few months before the law adopted in April 2022 to overhaul USPS’s finances and allow it to modernize its service (Postal Service Reform Act-PSRA, Public Law 117−108, 2022) and 1 year after the USPS published “Delivering for America: Our 10 year-plan” on March 23, 2021 (USPS, Delivering for America: Our vision and ten-year plan to achieve financial sustainability and service excellence, 2021). In this chapter, we will address two domestic rate comparisons to gauge USPS’s response to inflation: USPS’s rate increases for mail and packages and USPS’s parcel rate increases for last-mile delivery to its domestic competitors, FedEx, and UPS. We also describe the debate in the European Union (EU) and in the United Kingdom where postal operators face similar inflation rates. Our basic observation is that unanticipated inflation creates uncertainty that makes planning difficult. This is not a surprising result. A more interesting issue is to what extent price caps make planning more difficult. We present results that suggest price caps add a constraint to the planning process that produces a delayed response to inflation. Yet, it did not appear binding. Both dominant and competitive postal services show a similar lagged response to inflation.

Deep Learning Approach for Tunisian Postal Address Segmentation

Intelligent Systems and Pattern Recognition — Cham: Springer — 2025 — С. 1–12

Automatic document recognition relies heavily on accurate information localization and extraction, especially in offline Arabic handwritten document processing. Many postal systems in Arabic countries, like Tunisia, still rely on manual mail sorting and processing due to the challenges of Arabic script recognition. These challenges include the inherent cursive nature of the script, context dependence of characters, segmentation difficulties, and a scarcity of deep learning-based solutions. This paper proposes a deep learning approach for segmenting handwritten Tunisian postal addresses. Our method utilizes a customized Faster Regional-Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN) architecture to achieve high detection accuracy for various postal address components.

Is It Time to Revisit the USPS’ Strategy for Financial Sustainability?

Postal Strategies in a Digital and Green Transition — Springer — 2026

The main culprits for continuing loss of United States Postal Service (USPS) losses are both familiar and new. Mail volumes continue their secular decline, most notably in first-class and marketing mail, and in periodicals as well. The most troubling decline is in shipping and packages, which were rapidly growing with the growth of the online economy. If package delivery by USPS stagnates because of competition and price increases are constrained by competition, in long term the USPS is in deep trouble. The USPS will need to find new markets that have profit potential. Otherwise, the USPS will require large infusions of funds from the government, which at this point in time, is politically unacceptable. European Post strategies offer insights into a path forward for the USPS. The authors add their own product recommendations to improve the financial sustainability of USPS.

The Colonial Post Office

Monopoly Control — Singapore: Springer — 2023 — С. 69–86

The first network network -based government enterprise to be established in Australia after the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney in 1788 was a postal service postal services . Even today the postal service postal services in Australia is still under government ownership government ownership , long after many other businesses have been privatized. From the earliest days of the New South Wales colony the postal service postal services played a crucial role in the colony’s development, and later was followed by equivalents in each of the other colonies. These enterprises were also important in that to a large degree they provided the model for the other government-owned businesses that followed.

What Have You Done Philately? Stamps and the Death of the Liberal Dream in Carmen de Burgos’ Don Manolito (1916)

The Palgrave Handbook of Transnational Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century — Cham: Springer — 2024 — С. 549–564

Increasingly obsolete, stamps have been a prime site for the dissemination of national symbols. The portrayal of stamps in literary texts can thus generate fresh perspectives on the dynamics of banal nationalism. This essay analyzes one such depiction in the short novel Don Manolito (1916) by the Spanish writer and journalist Carmen de Burgos. Long overlooked, Don Manolito highlights not only the part played by stamps in sustaining our notions of nationhood but also the role of women in the construction of the liberal state. The short novel was written at a time when the progressive Burgos felt that the political landscape had stagnated in Spain, in stark contrast to the reinvigorated republic that had been declared in neighboring Portugal.

Insect diversity in Cambodian stamps: a philatelic and historical perspective

International Journal of Tropical Insect Science — 2025 — Т. 45 — № 6 — С. 2671–2679

Art serves as a powerful medium in biodiversity conservation by integrating scientific knowledge with cultural expression and public engagement. Postage stamps, as a visual and widely accessible form of communication, offer a unique platform to highlight insect diversity and promote conservation awareness. This study systematically examines the diversity, publication trends, and accuracy of insect-themed postage stamps issued in Cambodia between 1969 and 2024. A total of 316 insect-themed stamps were documented from four major philatelic sources including Colnect, Stampworld, Masakazu, and Patrice, featuring 119 species across 94 genera, 25 families, and 7 insect orders. The majority of depictions belonged to Lepidoptera (52.8%) and Coleoptera (41.5%), with Coccinella septempunctata being the most frequently featured species (7.3%). However, only 27 species (22.7%) had confirmed records in Cambodia, indicating that most featured insects are non-native. Stamp issuance was minimal prior to 1980 and entirely absent during the conflict-ridden 1970s, but increased markedly during the Vietnamese administration (1979–1992), peaking in the 1990s. Several taxonomic inaccuracies were observed, including misspelled scientific names and incorrect classifications. These findings underscore the role of insect-themed stamps as reflections of national identity, cultural heritage, and biodiversity representation. It also highlights the importance of accurate taxonomic representation to enhance their educational and conservation value.