Often times, people become frustrated when they open a Web site and accidentally close out of it, said Dick Boyum, professor emeritus of Counseling Services.

But the Self-Help section of the Counseling Services’ award-winning Web site, which drew 81,373 hits in October, is almost impossible to close accidentally because a link would take you to a new window.

“Sometimes when people are under stress or under pressure, (they say,) ‘Oh, my God, I lost that,’ ” Boyum said. “We’ve got it set up so you always go back on the Self-Help material where you’ve been.”

He said while he normally isn’t fond of computers, he developed a basic site when a student from CNS he was working with challenged him to create a page.

He said he told the student he’d try to put together the best site possible.

“I think we’ve done that,” said Boyum, who received the Outstanding Writing Award in 2002 from the Wisconsin School Counselors Association in recognition of developing the site. The Wisconsin College Student Personnel Association again recognized him in 2003 with an award presented at a national conference in Philadelphia that he opted not to attend so the money he would have spent could be put toward other things at UW-Eau Claire.

Senior Shawn Everhart, a text-web development student at CNS and an MIS major, met with Boyum in 2001 to discuss improving the site launched in 1999 and to gather materials to post on it.

“Back in 2001, it really wasn’t even a Web site,” he said. “They just had their phone number up there ….”

Boyum said that version drew 22,000 hits in one year. Now, it takes just nine days for that many people to access the site, www.uwec.edu/counsel. Boyum said last year, the site received 715,706 hits “because mental health is a real important issue, and because the page is very user-friendly.”

The Web site offers a variety of sections, including the Self-Help section.

“There’s information on how to improve relationships, (you can) get information on better coping strategies, and you can look at whether or not you have a problem with alcohol,” Boyum said, “and it doesn’t cost you anything, other than you have to have access to (a) computer that will get you to that page.”

Among those who access the site are Web surfers at a Malaysian university, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Scotland.

“I get e-mails from people all over the world,” Boyum said. “If you read those compliments, they’re testimonials … I think it says a lot about the page.”

Everhart, who still maintains the site, attributed the attention received to the material posted.

“I think because there’s so much good material out there on it, a lot of … non-university people are finding it over the Internet, over Google and stuff like that,” he said. ” … I know he’s gotten tons of contacts, letters from other counselors at other colleges across the U.S. and even some international ones that say, ‘Hey, we use this stuff all the time. Thanks a lot.'”