Introduction to Omeka

Hands-On with Omeka
Building a Narrative with Digital Objects
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Shawn Day
Queen’s University Library - 9 December 2013

Upcoming Seminars and Workshops
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January - Digital Project Management
February - Survey of Digital Humanities Ecosystem
February - Data Visualisation for Presentation
March - Social Scholarship – Tools for Collaborative
Research
April - Data Visualisation for Textual and Spatial Analysis
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More to come: http://qubdh.co.uk

Objective
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To understand through hands-on 'doing' whether Omeka
might be of use in your research programme
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Omeka was developed at Center for History and New Media
(CHNM) at George Mason University as a "next generation
web publishing platform for museums, historical societies,
scholars, enthusiasts, and educators." The feature-rich
offering provides for the presentation, searching and
browsing of digital collections along with a robust
metadata management facility.

Who is CNMH?
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Roy Rosenzweig Centre for New Media and History
Founded 1994
George Mason University in Washington
Collaborative Space Supporting 50+ Scholars
To preserve and present history online
Transform scholarship across the humanities
Supported by grants from AHA, NEH, NHC, Library of
Congress, Meloon, Sloan, Rockefeller and Kellog
Foundations amongst others

Products
Zotero

Omeka.net

THATCamp

Scripto

PressForward

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Omeka

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Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is Designed for cultural
Let Omeka.net host your Short for “The
a free, easy-to-use
institutions, enthusiasts,
collections, research,
Humanities and
Firefox extension to
and educators, Omeka is
exhibits, and digital
Technology Camp,"
help you collect,
a platform for publishing
projects.
THATCamp is a
manage, and cite
online collections and
BarCamp-style, useryour research
exhibitions.
generated
sources.
“unconference” on
digital humanities.

Scripto is a free, open
source tool that enables
community
transcriptions of
document and
multimedia files.

PressForward is
pioneering new
methods to capture
and highlight
orphaned or
underappreciated
scholarship and
share it with digital
humanists across
the web.

ScholarPress

Anthologize

Survey Builder

Timeline Builder

Serendip-o-matic

Web Scrapbook

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Manage your class,
Anthologize is a free, open- Build online surveys that CHNM Labs: Easily
publish research, or
source, plugin that
are especially
create and manage a
collaborate on a
transforms WordPress
applicable to oral
timeline of historical
conference
into a platform for
histories.
events for your
presentation with this publishing electronic
website.
hub for scholarly &
texts.
educational plugins.

Serendip-o-matic connects Store all kinds of
your sources to digital
media items —
materials located in
URLs, images, text,
libraries, museums, and
and movies — &
archives around the
collaborate thru the
world.
CHNM online
scrapbook.

So What can you do with it? In Education
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Example 2

So What can you do with it?
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Example 1

OMEKA Core Features
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Based on Open Source
Technology: Linux,
Apache, MySQL, PHP;
Free to Use, Free to
Change;
Easy to Use;
Change Design using
Themes;

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Add Functionality with
Plug-Ins;
Unqualified Dublin Core
Metadata;
Strong Support
Community;
Extensible, Scalable,
Flexible;
Interoperable

Steps in the Exercise
1. Set Up an omeka.net Account
2. Set Up an Omeka Site
3. Add Items to the Site
4. Make a Collection of Items
5. Create an Exhibit
1. Create Sections
2. Create Pages

6. Customise

Step 1
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Set Up an omeka.net Account

1. Click on the "Sign Up!" button and enter requested
information;
2. Open your email account and find the confirmation email
sent by Omeka;
3. Click the confirmation email to activate your account.

What is 'an Omeka'
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An Omeka 'instance' contains:
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Items (digital Objects of various types)
Collections (of objects)
Sites (set of collections)
Exhibits (curated subsets of site collections)

Step 2.1 Define the Site
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Subdomain: Machine
Friendly
Site Title: People Friendly
Site Description:
Searchable but for your
own good practice

Step 2.2 Good Practice : Define the Site

Step 3 : Upload Items
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Items can be no larger than 32Mb
Free instance of Omeka limited to 500Mb in total
Need to manage storage and file size
Upgrade for more

Supported Item Types
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Document
Still Image
Moving Image
Sound
Oral History
Email
Lesson Plan
Website
HyperLink

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Event (Time-Based
Occurrence)
Person (Biographic)
Interactive Resource

Sidenote: Buying Server Space
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Simpler then you may think
$12/yr on reclaimhosting.com for example
$4-6 gets you as much as you may need for personal or
project usage
Hostgator, Bluehost, DreamHost, Site5 are good examples
Domain Name + Shared server space
Software Installs are automated
Mailserver etc. standard

Step 3.1 Upoad an Item
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Return to the Dashboard
Choose 'Add an Item'
Dublin Core?
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More Info: http://dublincore.org
15 Metadata Elements of a generic and wide-ranging number
of digital resources;
Each Dublin Core element is optional and may be repeated;
Other schemes: MARC,
How can we semantically define an object’s context?

A Rock Quick Look at the 15 Elements
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Title
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<dc:title></dc:title>
What the formal name of this resource - how would a user
know it?
Examples: title of a painting, photo, document; the name of a
person when using the "person" item type; the name of a
lesson plan.

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Subject
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<dc:subject></dc:subject>
What is the domain area/topic (non-spatial or temporal) that
the object is part of?
Controlled vocabularies such as the Getty can help here.
Typically keywords, key phrases, or classification codes.
Examples: Library of Congress subject headings; subjectspecific nomenclature.

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Description
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<dc:description></dc:description>
What sort of short narrative will help a user to know whether
this resource is relevant to their needs?
This is often an abstract, a table of contents or even a
graphical representation of the object
Examples: a photo caption; descriptive information of an
artifact/museum object; summary of a lesson plan; abstract
or summary of a long document;

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Creator
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<dc:creator></dc:creator>
Who is responsible for making this digital resource - digtiser,
digital author?
The original author or the digitising institution?
Examples: Author/authors; artists; photographers; institutional
authors or producers, such as university or federal agency.

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Source
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<dc:source></dc:source>
From what resource did the derived digital resource come
from?
This can be a type, a descriptor but best practice recommends
a string conforming to a formal identifier system
Examples: Accession number; Collection of objects; Division of
an archive or library.

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Publisher
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<dc:publisher></dc:publisher>
Who (what institution is making this resource available?
If there is a license or copyright involved helps to determine
this one
Examples: actual publisher, if there is one; entity or
consortium publishing digital materials.

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Date
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<dc:date></dc:date>
A point or period in the lifecycle of the digital object
When was this scanned? When was it published?
Consistency - decided by project management - documented
Consider in relation to the coverage of the object
Date is one of the trickiest fields to fill.You will want to decide how best
to use it for your project for consistency. There is an open text field for
date so that you can reflect the type of date information you have
whether it is a very specific date MM/DD/YYYY or if it is "circa 1940".

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Contributor
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<dc:contributor></dc:contributor>
Who (individual, institution, organisation - entity) is making
this object available/responsible for its digitisation?
Examples: person who contributed a story or file for an Omeka
collecting project; owner or donor of collected objects.

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Rights
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<dc:rights></dc:rights>
What restrictions are held in and over this resource?
This is typically a statement relation to the intellectual and
usage rights relating to this digital object
Examples: spell out conditions of use for specific items here;
Creative Commons type; Public Domain.

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Relation
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<dc:relation></dc:relation>
What resources are related to this digitised object?
Best practice is to refer to a <dc:identifier>
Examples: a still image of a person entered as a "person" type.

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Format
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<dc:format></dc:format>
What is the file format of this digital resource?
Examples include size and duration. Recommended best
practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the
Internet Media Types (MIME).

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Language
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<dc:language></dc:language>
What is the language(s) of the digital resource?
Again best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as
RFC4646
Examples: English; Russian; Spanish, et al.

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Type
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<dc:type></dc:type>
What defined type best represents the object you are
referencing?
Best practice to use the DCMI Type controlled vocabulary
http://dublincore.org/documents/2010/10/11/dcmi-typevocabulary/
Examples: For consistency, use item type controlled vocabulary
provided by Omeka: Document, Moving Image, Oral History, Sound,
Still Image,Website, Event, Email, Lesson Plan, Hyperlink, Person, or
Interactive Resource.

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Identifier
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<dc:identifier></dc:identifier>
Where will a user find this resource via the web?
A direct and unambiguous identification of the resource unique and persistent - handle?

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Coverage
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<dc:coverage></dc:coverage>
To what defining place or time is this item relevant (spatial or
temporal)?
Typically relies on a controlled vocabulary relevant to the
domain, ie. The Getty Museum / Research Institute
Where appropriate, named places or time periods can be
used in preference to numeric identifiers such as sets of
coordinates or date ranges.

Spend time thinking about your metadata in
advance
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This is 'simple' Dublin Core
You need to qualify to describe more fully
How will people find what they are looking for?
How will they differentiate from one 'thing' over another?
How will your information architecture refer to the digital
objects?
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Useful for Straight Dublin Core: Dublin Core Generator

Spend time thinking about your
metadata in advance
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It’s really about best practice
which means although you
can touch and feel an
object, you must define it
properly first

Step 3.1 … Add an Item
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Enter data to the best of your ability for the Dublin Core
info - bearing in mind not all fields are mandatory;
Title, Description and Subject important.
Title:
Description:
Subject:
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I suggest using an existing site for this example and
scraping data from it.

Step 3.2 … Specify Item Type
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You can select from the default ypes supported by Omeka.
These can correspond to the dc:type but not tied directly

Step 3.3 … Add a File to the Item
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You can have one or multiple files;
Depends on type of item.

Step 3.4 … Add Tags to the Item
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Why Tags with all the DC metadata?

Step 4 Make a Collection
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Collections contain Items

Step 4.1 Add Items to a Collection

Let’s Take a Look at What We Have

Step 5 Create an Exhibit
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What is an Exhibit?
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A carefully composed and curated digital showcase that
organizes the images, texts, video, audio, and other
uploaded items on your Omeka site into a coherent
narrative for people to browse.
Harriet Green, Librarian, University of Illinois Scholarly Commons

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Exhibits consist of Sections and Pages and Group
Collections and Items
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The first step is to plan your exhibit as items cannot be
spontaneously organised.

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Time spent at this stage is essential - define the display
architecture

Step 5.1 Create an Exhibit
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Enable the Exhibit Plug-In

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Success

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Add an Exhibit

Step 8 Add a Home Page
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Use the Simple Page Plug-In to Add A Static Page

Step 8 Cleaning Up
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Remove Unused Components

Planning an Omeka Site
1. What are the primary goals of the website?
2. Who is the primary audience of this website?
1. Secondary audiences?
3. What sections will this website include?
1. Items: (renamed however you would like Archive/Sources/Objects)
links to a browseable list of items, sortable by type of item and tags.
2. Collections (renamed however you would like): groups of items,
public can dig through collection to find items.
3. Exhibits: (renamed however you would like) Exhibits contain
interpretative text and rely on items/sources/objects as their
building blocks.
4. About-- a simple page good for publishing project descriptions,
credits, rights, et al

What About Items in this Website?
1. The item is the building block of your site.
1. Add the objects and materials you want to
display in your site.
2. Add descriptions using some or all of the
standard Dublin Core fields.
3. Once you have items in the Omeka archive,
then you can build an exhibit with them
or display categories of items organized
by collections or tags.
2. Determine the types of items/sources/objects
you plan to use in this site: (ie, Document,
Still Image, Moving Image, Audio, et al),
3. Do you want to modify any of the item type
fields or types? See Item_Types for
additional types and explanations.

4. Do you need additional core fields? —>
Install the Dublin Core Extended plugin.
5. It is wise to determine before you start
building the item archive what type of
consistencies you desire in your metadata-this may be especially true for fields such
as date, publisher, creator, et al.
6. Would you like to establish your own
Controlled Vocabulary for specific metadata
fields, to make it easier for your team to
enter consistent data? —> Install Simple
Vocab plugin.
7. Do you need Library of Congress subject
headings? —> Install Library of Congress
Subject Headings plugin.

What About Items in this Website?
1. Do you want to establish a controlled tagging
schema? You may add tags to individual
items and exhibits. Before building your
archive you may want to devise this schema
to help control vocab and spelling. Tags can
help you pull together different items for the
purpose of arranging them on a map or
creating navigational links to browse items
with a specific tag.
2. Do you have materials in other databases or
repositories? You may be able to batch add
them into your Omeka site. Can items be
exported in a Comma Separated Value
format? —> CSV Import plugin.

3. Is there an OAI-PMH harvestable set? —>
OAI-PMH Harvester plugin.
4. Do you have hundreds of files, or large media
files? —> Dropbox plugin.
5. Do you want to display items on a map? —>
the Geolocation plugin, you must geolocate
each item individually.
6. Are you interested in collecting materials
from your visitors through a web form, such
as a story or textual reflection, photos,
videos, et al. —> Contribution plugin to
facilitate collecting.
7. Do you want to build an exhibit with your
items? —> the Exhibit Builder plugin.

Thinking About Displaying Items
1. Do you want to add social bookmarking icons to the bottom of items/
show to allow users to share links to that item w/their social
networks?
1. —> the Social Bookmarking plugin.
2. Do you want to open commenting on items (only available at item
level, and for all items or none)?
1. —> the Commenting plugin.
3. Do you want to create and print QR Codes that link visitors in a
physical place to individual items in your Omeka site?
1. —> the Bar Code and Reports plugin.
4. Do you have documents that you wish users to read through on the
screen rather than downloading them?
1. —> the DocsViewer plugin.

Extending Omeka Even Further
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Do you want to allow users to be notified of changes to
your items, collections, or exhibits?
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Do you want users to be able to harvest objects to their
own bibliographic managers (such as Zotero)?
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—> COinS metadata

Do you want to track user demographics?
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—> Adam Output (Atom Syndication Format)

—> Google Analytics

Do you want to generate derivative images?
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—> Derivatives plug-in

Extending Omeka
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Would you rather user PBCore (VRCore being spoken of)?
‣ —> PBCore for AV
‣ Are you working with Audio material?
‣ Send it directly to SOundCloud with the SC Plugin
‣ Do you use Library of Congress Terms?
‣ —> LOC augosuggest
‣ Would you like to crowdsource transcription of materials in your
collection?
‣ —> Scripto Transcription plugin

Omeka.net in a Nutshell
Pros
‣ Simple
‣ Lightweight
‣ Standards-Based
‣ Extensible
‣ Embeddable in other
systems
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Cons
‣ Scalability
‣ Some cross-browser
issues
‣ Restrictions on Look and
Feel
‣ Extensive customisation
means getting into code
‣ Mobile on the way

Comparing omeka.net and omeka.org
Features
Server
FTP client
Web-based administrative interface for adding,
editing, deleting items, collections, exhibits

Storage Space
File size limitations
Sites per Installation
Custom Domain Redirects
Plugins and Themes
Pricing
Support

omeka.net

omeka.org
LAMP server required

no server required

Required for file uploads and modifying Omeka

not required

Yes

Yes

Determined by your server admin

Determined by your plan: 500 mb; 1 gb; 5 gb; 10 gb; or
25gb

Determined by your server admin, with ability to use
Dropbox plugin for files that exceed that limit.

32 mb maximum

One website for one Omeka installation

Depending on plan, multiple sites available managed by
one user.

You may point any Omeka installation to any domain
name.

No redirects available. All sites are subdomains of
Omeka.net (yoursite.omeka.net)

Any and all available in Add-ons directory (see more on
other pages)

Not all Omeka plugins are available for use on .Net. And
availability of those plugins depends on the plan chosen
(see more on other pages).

Free: all versions of Omeka, and all of its plugins and
themes are free and will be always.

Free basic plan will always be available, with other options
available for small fee: http://www.omeka.net/signup

User Forums: http://omeka.org/forums

Help section with detailed instructions: http://
info.omeka.net

Developers' Google Group: https://groups.google.com/
group/omeka-dev/

Troubleshooting help form: http://info.omeka.net/contact

Advanced development: GitHub: http://github.org/omeka

Alternatives
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WordPress
Drupal
Exhibit?
ContentDM
Duraspace (DSpace and Fedora)
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Noting that Omeka and these all can co-exist

Where to Go —> Neatline
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From the Scholar’s Lab at UVa

Where to Go Next
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Links
Examples
See the Support Page for this workshop:  
http://wp.me/P40OB7-38

Thank You
Shawn Day - s.day@qub.co.uk - @iridium
!

The Library/Institute for Collaborative Research in the
Humanities 
18 University Square - Ground Floor
http://qubdh.co.uk

Introduction to Omeka

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