Digital Humanities:Building Digital Collections

with Omeka Lab

Amanda Focke | Woodson Research Center

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

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?

What questions must one consider in the development of a digital collection?

• Reasons to do it in the first place…

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

Description

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 Corehttp://dublincore.org/documents/dces/

More on Creative Commonshttp://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

HOW CAN YOU SET UP A COLLECTION USING OMEKA?

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

Where would it “be”?

• Omeka’s hosted solution: http://www.omeka.net/

Or…• On a server you set up : http://

omeka.org/codex/Hosting_Suggestions

Omeka’s sandbox

• Log on: • To access the administrative panel, visit:

http://omeka.org/sandbox/admin. • The public interface you'll be modifying is accessible at

http://omeka.org/sandbox. • At the login screen, enter demo as the username and

sandbox as the password.

• More info: http://omeka.org/codex/Try_Omeka_Before_Installing• Items are scratched overnight

Omeka is built to handle items, collections & exhibits

You assign users / levels of permissionYou choose a design theme from the choices availableYou gather:

your digital files ready for web quality access (files at the intended display size / quality)your descriptive info (metadata) for your digital objects

Playtime

1.) Create a new collection with a name of your choosing2.) Add an item – an example from an existing item online, using the Dublin Core metadata template provided, and a file3.) Add another item – an example from a primary source of your own, using the Dublin Core metadata template provided, and a file

HOW MIGHT YOU USE AN OMEKA COLLECTION?

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

Plug-ins at work

• Exhibits – in most Omeka installations

• Transcription– http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/– http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/transcribe/items/show/239

• Timeline– http://collections.libraries.iub.edu/warof1812/timeline

• Comments– http://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/2006

• Geolocation– http://bridgesnyc.com/postcards/items/show/110

Where to begin?

• Frame your project goals• Articulate the

functionality it needs• Find the right tool for it –

possibly Omeka!

Thanks!

Amanda FockeWoodson Research Center1st floor Fondren Library713.348.2124 | afocke@rice.edu