Support
If you have questions after reading this guide, please contact Dan Tracy (dtracy@illinois.edu), head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing.
If you are considering starting a journal or digital publication, the Illinois Open Publishing Network is here to help with consultations on digital publishing, open access, scholarly communication, and copyright.
Subject Guide
About Omeka
Omeka is an online content management system that enables you to create dynamic online exhibits that showcase collections of digital images, text, and other multi-media formats in one seamless site.
There are three versions of Omeka, each slightly differing in functionality and purpose. This guide is focused on getting started with Omeka.net which satisfies the needs of the average student or library user.
- Omeka.netIf you’re new to Omeka, we recommend that you use Omeka.net. Here, you can build an Omeka website hosted for free on the Omeka.net servers. Omeka.net works well for classroom instruction, allowing each student to manage their own site independently. However, free accounts have limited functionality and the library does not have an institutional account.
- Omeka SOmeka S is a next-generation version of Omeka Classic. Designed for universities, galleries, libraries, archives and museums, users can collaborate and create exhibits from a shared pool of items, media, and metadata. The University of Illinois Library currently provides support for Omeka S through the Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN) for more formal projects, involving an author agreement with the library and working on a publication timeline. Request a publishing consultation to begin the process.
- Omeka ClassicBest for those who run an independent website on their own servers, Omeka Classic offers a full installation of Omeka on your own website with software available online for free. We recommend using Omeka Classic on the campus CPanel service for classroom uses, experimentation with Omeka, and research projects that will have long-term ongoing development.
Example Omeka Exhibits
Omeka.net, the web-based version:
- Suffragette StoriesSuffragette Stories features over 100 items related to women’s suffrage. The site uses Omeka’s exhibits to combine these items with narrative—both creative and non-fiction.
- EMDRIA Francine Shapiro LibraryThe Francine Shapiro Library uses Omeka to build a vast collection of scholarly resources on the Adaptive Information Processing Model (AIP) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy. Its effective use of collections and tag sets make the library easy to navigate.
Omeka Classic:
- The Story of the Beautiful: Freer, Whistler, & Their Points of ContactThe Story of the Beautiful provides virtual tours of James Whistler's peacock room while providing historical context. The site is organized using simple pages and tags.
- Wearing Gay HistoryWearing Gay History is home to a digitized collection of t-shirts from several LGBTQ archives across the United States. The t-shirts span several decades and can be explored thematically and by archival collection.