IDYB News

News and Updates

November 24, 2023

In October, the Mares In Black podcast had the three of us Curators on as guests. If you'd like to hear our three distinct accents (Midwest, Maine, and Eastern Canadian), learn more about us and what we're working on with IDYB, give it a listen! You can download it at their site HERE, or subscribe from pretty much anywhere you normally find podcasts. It is Episode #109.

July 16, 2023

Just a note that BreyerFest images are planned to be uploaded in the next week or two to give Steph V. time to get back home and for us to process the images. Thank you!

June 10, 2023

Today, June 10th, 2023, marks the second anniversary of the passing of Janice Cox, Founder of IDYB. We want to take a moment to appreciate how much Janice did for our hobby. On her own, with just her two hands, she built IDYB from the ground up, and spent over 40 hours a week updating it, for over 20 years. As we continue our work to modernize her hand-built code, we hope she is proud of the work being done here. Thank you all for your support and for taking a moment to think of Janice and send her a mental "thank you" for dedicating much of her life to creating this amazing, free-to-use virtual archive for Breyer (and other) models.

June 7, 2023

It appears we aren't always receiving emails being sent to IDYB email addresses. We're not sure the cause of this, as it seems sporadic, but we're looking into it. Also, please note, we're not adding any photos or updating any vintage models at this time, because that work would need to be done again once the new coding is in place (which should be soon). Please hold your submissions for now, and we'll announce when we're ready to take them. Thanks for your patience and continued support! We've made great progress "behind the scenes," where Steph M is continuing to rebuild the old code into something more modern and user-friendly. If you'd like to see a sample of the work she's doing, you can go to the Main Menu » New Releases » New for 2023 to see some of the new features we're testing there!

April 12, 2023

We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to upgrade the coding on IDYB and its sister sites... We're now beginning to make some of that visible, as we progress toward making the sites work better with modern browsers. You may begin to notice this in the form of slightly different fonts and formatting on some pages, and we didn't want to startle you.

We're keeping them as close to the original as possible, but certain things, like the font Janice used, aren't compatible with modern browsers, so it's causing some errors. As we update pages, you'll notice the font is similar, but slightly different. Formatting changes make the site work on tablets and phones, which weren't in the picture when Janice originally built the site.

These changes will continue to roll out slowly over the next few months, as we (mostly Steph M!) build them. Thanks for your support and encouragement throughout this process - It means a lot to us!

February 13, 2023

The Site Migration To The Larger Server Is Done!! Thank you for your patience as we work to improve the bones of the site!

January 28, 2023

New Site Server Migration! IDYB may be down for a short time in the next couple of weeks as we move to a larger server. Our current host had thought they could handle the size and usage of IDYB on their shared hosting but found that they were unable to.

We will now be moving to a VPS which will be able to house the mass of info and photos currently on the site as well as plenty of room and bandwidth to grow.

November 27, 2022

Site Server Migration - FINISHED!! IDYB is now in it's new home and seems to be running well. Please let us know if you find anything that isn't working, there were a LOT of files to transfer and some may have escaped in transit. :-)

You will notice that a few of the pages now have a new look. We are re-writting the page code to be more mobile friendly so you will notice the new look as more pages are upgraded. Due to the number of pages, this will take some time so you will start to find a mix of old and new formats as we sift through the site. :-)

And most importantly, we would like to introduce the new IDYB logo that has been created to honor Janice Cox for creating this wonderful site and keeping it updated the last 20 years. Janice, we miss you...

November 22, 2022

Site Server Migration - Third Time's The Charm Hosting transfer is now in progress (yay!). Please be prepared for things to start going offline during the transfer. Due to the size of the site, we will need to move the site in a couple of different pieces so please don't be concerned when the images and certain pages disappear. They will be back once we are re-homed on the new host server :-) . Thanks for your patience!

November 5, 2022

Site Server Migration - Third Time's The Charm (we hope!) We will hopefully be changing site hosts this week. Expect IDYB to possibly be DOWN for a couple of days while the data transfers to the new hosting company. We're hoping this will resolve some of the server errors everyone has been experiencing, and it will allow us to more easily start working on updating code. Thanks for your patience. Please spread the word so others don't panic if the site is offline when they visit this week. Thanks!

October 18, 2022

Site Server Migration - Second Try :-) We will hopefully be changing site hosts this week. Expect IDYB to possibly be DOWN for a couple of days while the data transfers to the new hosting company. We're hoping this will resolve some of the server errors everyone has been experiencing, and it will allow us to more easily start working on updating code. Thanks for your patience. Please spread the word so others don't panic if the site is offline when they visit this week. Thanks!

September 11, 2022

Unfortunately, we need to push our move to the new server out a few weeks due to some unforseen issues. Until then we will continue to update the site on the current server so you will be able to continue to access it. We will post a notice at the top of the Home page when we will attempt the move to the new server again. Thank you for your patience and understanding!

September 6, 2022

We will be changing site hosts this week. Expect IDYB to be DOWN for a couple of days while the data transfers to the new hosting company. We're hoping this will resolve some of the server errors everyone has been experiencing, and it will allow us to more easily start working on updating code. Thanks for your patience. Please spread the word so others don't panic if the site is offline when they visit this week. Thanks!

August 31, 2022

We are happy to announce that Identify Your Breyer (and its sister sites) are being updated! Janice, who started IDYB, passed away unexpectedly in 2021. Going forward, there will be three curators working together to manage the sites. We have been working with her family to carefully transfer all of the websites and set up things behind-the-scenes, and now that everything is finalized and we’ve been able to bring IDYB up-to-date, we’re pleased to announce this formally. The curator group consists of three collectors: Stephanie Michel of Minnesota, Eleda Towle of Maine, and Stephanie Van Horne of Quebec, Canada. We each bring a different skillset, but we all agree that Janice’s work and memory should be respected. IDYB will always be her baby, and now it will live on in tribute to the twenty years she spent building it.

Please be patient with us, as we’re still learning how she coded the sites, and it will take us time to get everything organized (including new email addresses for questions and submissions), but you can look forward to the site being kept up-to-date going forward. Having three people involved should provide stability for the site in the event one of us is unable to update it. Future plans include making the site more user-friendly for new collectors -- without changing what we long-time collectors love about it.

For the next several weeks, though, we'll be working on the important "framework" behind the scenes to make sure the code is brought up to date so it doesn't "break" as it has been doing for some viewers for a while now. We also will need to set up new email accounts, as we don't want to access Janice's private emails, so we'd like to ask that you please hold off on sending emails and submissions for the time being. We'll announce on the site when we're ready to take questions and submissions of photos and information. This is a huge project, and we want to go slowly to do it well. We hope you’ll support us as we take on this responsibility, and we look forward to hearing your feedback as we make progress.

As to rumors about charging a fee to use this site...NO, absolutely not - There will never be a fee to access IDYB while the three of us are involved.

We are not doing this for money, and we're all volunteering our time. Currently Eleda is paying all the hosting fees. Janice built the site out of love for the hobby, and that's how we'll carry it on. Information should be accessible to everyone, both lifelong collectors and new collectors just starting out.

We *may* in the future someday, include a donation button somewhere on the site for those who have asked if they could donate toward paying the hosting fees, but that hasn't been seriously discussed yet. If we do add one someday, it won't be promoted - It would just be there if anyone wanted to put a few dollars into the hosting account. But no - Access will always be free, as Janice intended.