Building Digital Exhibits !Using Omeka !

Franky Abbott, DPLA Project Manager franky@dp.la

October 2, 2014 Mountain West Digital Library Fall Webinar Series

Why build digital exhibits?!

Use valuable digital content to tell important stories

Exhibits are stories told by marrying writing and items in a narrative structure

“Hudson Park, Story hour.” Courtesy the New York Public Library.

What’s in it for cultural heritage orgs?!

² Content in context

² New audiences

²  Increase visibility

² Opportunities for collaboration

What’s in it for others?!

² Tell stories with primary sources

² Build curation skills

² Take advantage of the visual emphasis of web publishing

² Collaborate!

As you plan exhibits, think about: ! Audience? Scope? Maintenance?

“A construction site,” 1981. Department of Defense. National Archives and Records Administration.

Why in Omeka?!Can choose between hosted and self-hosted Offers a searchable database integrated with online exhibits; built for web display* Easy to use “out of the box” Active development and open source community

To host or not to host?!Omeka.org – self-hosted (owning) Omeka.net – hosted (renting) You can do more with .org but it involves more work See: http://bitly.com/compareomekas

Courtesy Georgia State University.

omeka.org !

Your institution may be able to host…

or you can buy commercial web hosting and do it yourself. ��� See: http://omeka.org/codex/Hosting_Suggestions

omeka.net/plans

Basic Components in Omeka!Item: content “building block”

Collection: subset of your items

Exhibit: curated selection of your items

Website: controlled with themes and plugins

Courtesy University of Southern California Libraries.

Themes – Look and Feel !

Plugins - Functionality !

●  COins

●  CSV Import

●  Docs Viewer

●  Exhibit Builder

●  Google Analytics

●  Library of Congress Suggest

●  OAI-PMH Harvester

●  Shared Shelf Link

●  Simple Pages

●  Social Bookmarking

Users!Can add as many as you want with any Omeka plan/instance. Four roles:

–  Super –  Admin

–  Contributor –  Researcher

StructureExhibit

Section

Page Page

Section

SectionSectionSection

Page

Page

Page

Writing + Items

Pages

Supporting Omeka!

Open Source " "!

Means source code is available online (so others can modify and adapt it) Benefit: encourages community participation

Active development !

development team at CHNM

•  write new releases, updates, and fixes •  develop new plug-ins •  monitor and participate in forums •  respond to users’ development requests

Omeka documentation!Guides and directions Screencast videos Different directions for different releases - make sure you’re using the right one!

omeka.org/forums/ !

Active community of

users and developers

Search for your questions first

Post your own questions

Additional resources!Omeka.net showcase of sample sites Omeka.org showcase of sample sites Omeka documentation

UCLA DH101 tutorial (Anthony Bushong & David Kim)

The Programming Historian tutorial (Miriam Posner)

UIUC guide (Harriet Green)

Introduction to Omeka Lesson Plan (Amanda French)