Omeka is a simple web publishing system ideal for archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums for making searchable digital collections of primary source material. Considering this, the organization of Omeka.net and Omeka Classic makes the most sense when thinking about physical archives and cultural heritage institutions. Omeka is organized through Items, Collections, and Exhibits. Users interact with items by collections or exhibits on your site and learn more about the project through simple pages.
If you have questions after reading this guide, please contact Dan Tracy (dtracy@illinois.edu), head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing.
Items are the most basic level of any Omeka site. When you upload an item, you are asked to provide metadata in Dublin Core. These items will remain in your personal library, only becoming accessible on the site if you link to a collection or place them in an exhibit.
Omeka can display items in multiple formats on the website, including still images, word processing documents, presentation slides, spreadsheets, audio files, and video files, with the full list of file types available in the Omeka.net documentation. But the critical factor to keep in mind is file size and storage space:
Organize items into collections. Just as physical items only exist in one collection in an archives, Omeka only allows items to exist in one digital collection. When items are organized into collections, users can browse the project through these item sets.
Exhibits are curated digital showcases combining images, text, audio, video, and other uploaded items int oa coherent narrative for people to browse. Exhibits can pull items from multiple collections and bring them together for display.
There are multiple ways you can outline your Omeka site and exhibits. You can write an outline:
Title: Architecture of UIUC Libraries
I. Main Library exhibit
A. Reference Room section
B. Building Exterior section
1. Statues
2. Wall Ornaments
II. Undergraduate Library exhibit
III. Mathematics Library exhibit
Or you can create a flow chart (Powerpoint was used to create this one):
If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can arrange Post-Its on a wall or desk, cut out images to arrange on a flat surface, or do any other organizing methods you choose. The most important thing is to Plan Ahead.
The easiest and most accessible way to use Omeka is to sign up for a hosted Omeka.net account. The hosted accounts on Omeka.net are available at four levels: The free Basic account provides one (1) site and 500 MB of storage space. If you need more space than this, you may upgrade your account at your expense. The Library does not have an institutional account for Omeka.net.
After you log into your new Omeka.net account, click on "My Account" at the top of the page. On the Account page (also called the Dashboard) click on “Add a Site.”
Title your site by filling in the Subdomain blank of “[ ].omeka.net” and the Site Title entry space. Add a brief Site Description if you want, and then click “Add Your New Site.” You’ll then be taken back to My Dashboard, which now will list your site.
Click on the “Manage Site” link under the domain name, in order to get to the Omeka Admin "My Dashboard" to edit your website. For more assistance, see the Omeka.net documentation.
