1. Digital Humanities: Building Digital Collections with Omeka Lab Amanda Focke | Woodson Research Center

2. What is Omeka? A free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. A tool for featuring materials on-line without having to do (much) design / layout work or programming Wordpress or Blogger are to blogs what Omeka is to archival collections online

3. Today’s topics What questions must one consider in the development of a digital collection? How can you set up a collection using Omeka? How might you use an Omeka collection?

4. What questions must one consider in the development of a digital collection? Reasons to do it in the first place…

5. What questions must one consider in the development of a digital collection? The nature of the material you put up Audience Description Repurposeability Harvesting Quality of your files, consistent size, dpi

6. Description

7. Dublin Core metadata fields we will use today – just the basics Types of metadata – Descriptive – Preservation – Rights – Structural – Technical – Administrative dc.title | you may have to create a title dc.creator | name, if known dc.source | where did this item come from? dc.rights | copyright status / CC license dc.type | Still Image / Sound / Text etc. dc.citation | make it easy to cite your items dc.identifier | unique identifier, not the same as title More info on Dublin Core http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/ More on Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/choose/ More info on “types” http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms Wiki for guidelines used in a Fondren digital collection, with metadata guidelines & links http://bit.ly/1es9xsx

8. HOW CAN YOU SET UP A COLLECTION USING OMEKA?

9. What Omeka is and isn’t Not a preservation environment for digital collections on its own Is often used as a place for storytelling / exhibits, with pointers to the archival digital object in a repository Can be interactive (crowdsourcing metadata or transcriptions, for ex.) Can harvest metadata from other collections / can be harvested by other repositories

10. Where would it “be”? Omeka’s hosted solution: http://www.omeka.net/ http://www.omeka.net/ Or… On a server you set up : http://omeka.org/codex/Hosting_Suggestions http://omeka.org/codex/Hosting_Suggestions

11. Omeka’s sandbox Log on: To access the administrative panel, visit: http://omeka.org/sandbox/admin. http://omeka.org/sandbox/admin The public interface you'll be modifying is accessible at http://omeka.org/sandbox. http://omeka.org/sandbox At the login screen, enter demo as the username and sandbox as the password.login screen More info: http://omeka.org/codex/Try_Omeka_Before_Installing http://omeka.org/codex/Try_Omeka_Before_Installing Items are scratched overnight

12. Omeka is built to handle items, collections & exhibits You assign users / levels of permission You choose a design theme from the choices available You gather: your digital files ready for web quality access (files at the intended display size / quality) your descriptive info (metadata) for your digital objects

13. Playtime 1.) Create a new collection with a name of your choosing 2.) Add an item – an example from an existing item online, using the Dublin Core metadata template provided, and a file 3.) Add another item – an example from a primary source of your own, using the Dublin Core metadata template provided, and a file

14. HOW MIGHT YOU USE AN OMEKA COLLECTION?

15. ONCE YOUR COLLECTION IS BUILT, USE PLUG-INS TO SUIT YOUR GOALS List of plug-ins: http://omeka.org/add-ons/plugins/ Examples of sites using various plug-ins -- http://omeka.org/codex/View_Sites_Powered_by_Omeka http://omeka.org/codex/View_Sites_Powered_by_Omeka

16. Plug-ins at work Exhibits – in most Omeka installations Transcription – http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/ http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/ – http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/transcribe/items/show/239 Timeline – http://collections.libraries.iub.edu/warof1812/timeline http://collections.libraries.iub.edu/warof1812/timeline Comments – http://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/2006 http://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/2006 Geolocation – http://bridgesnyc.com/postcards/items/show/110 http://bridgesnyc.com/postcards/items/show/110

17. Where to begin? Frame your project goals Articulate the functionality it needs Find the right tool for it – possibly Omeka!

18. Thanks! Amanda Focke Woodson Research Center 1 st floor Fondren Library 713.348.2124 | afocke@rice.edu