OMEKA

OMEKA
DIGITAL HUMANITIES INSTITUTE BEIRUT 2017
Dalal Rahme
Research Data Services Librarian
American University of Beirut
DHIB2017- AUB LIBRARIES - DALAL RAHME 1

Objective
Understand what OMEKA is.
Understand what OMEKA does.
How it can be useful to our institution.

What is OMEKA?
Introduced in 2008 by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
◦ Other products by the same center: Zotero, THATCamp, Web Scrapbook and Scripto
It is an open access software platform designed so users can quickly and effectively
create powerful sites dedicated to their digital material.

What is OMEKA
“Omeka is a free, open source content management system for online digital collections.[1] As
a web application, it allows users to publish[2] and exhibit cultural heritage objects, and extend its
functionality with themes and plugins. A lightweight solution[3] in comparison to
traditional institutional repository software like DSpace and Fedora, Omeka has a focus on
display and uses an unqualified Dublin Core metadata standard”.
(Wikipedia, 2017)

Advantages of using OMEKA
Easy to use
Unqualified DC metadata
interoperability
Well documented
Flexible
Open Source: free to use, free to change.
Free/ Cheap
Provides the opportunity to work individually or collaboratively on projects.
Strong support community

Who uses OMEKA?
Libraries ( UIUC, CSU)
Archives (AUB )
Museums (Brooklyn Museum )
Scholars (In classroom: University of Nebraska)
Enthusiasts:
◦ Le consortium des archives des ethnologues
◦ Crowdsourcing project: http://transcrire.huma-num.fr/

OMEKA in the classroom
Teaches basic skills in classes such as “digital history”.
Provides a platform for students engagement with traditional and new forms of scholarships.
Teaches about the importance of documenting resources.
Enables them to work collaboratively for better output.
Access, manipulate, analyze, and visualize content in new ways.

Two roads to OMEKA
1- omeka.org
Download and host site on your own server.
2- omeka.net
Host your site on OMEKA’s server.

OMEKA.org
Hosted by you or your institution
Unlimited number of themes and plugins
Customizable themes and plugins

Omeka.net
It is a web publishing platform for small institutions with limited resources.
Anyone with an account can: publish, create and collaborate on a website to display collections
and built digital exhibits.
Predesigned templates -> no design or technical skills required. Similar to WordPress and
blogger.
One can add a stand alone page to OMEKA websites such as an About page or a Syllabus.

Omeka.net
Hosted by OMEKA: no server or ftp required
Basic plan (free) includes:
◦ 500 MB of storage
◦ 1 site
◦ 5 themes
◦ 13 plugins

Plan Ahead
Chose carefully your subdomain name, you cannot change it later.
Give your Omeka site a title. You can change it later.
What are the primary goals of the website?
Who is the primary audience of this website?
What sections will this website include?
◦ Items
◦ Collections: an item can be part of only one collection.
◦ Exhibits
◦ The introductory page: the About us.

Plan ahead
What will you do with items in this website?
Determine the item type (document, still image, moving image…etc)
Modify item type?
Need additional DC fields? Dublin Core Element set plugin
Social bookmarking plugin?

Copyrights
Make sure:
you are the copyright holder of the items you are
uploading to OMEKA.
You have the permission of the copyright holder
You are using items from the public domain

Consider using CC licenses

OMEKA structure
Site
Simple Page
Collection 1
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Item 7
Exhibit
Collection 2

Item
Items can be any digital object: text, image, audio, video, maps…etc
Items can be grouped by collection
Items can be tagged by keywords
Items can be assembled as exhibits: which combine media elements, captions and interpretive
text.

Set up your own site
Register for a free account using your email address
Choose a subdomain name: subdomain.omeka.net (cannot be modified later)
Give you Omeka site a title.

Appearance:
themes
4 configurable themes:
Rhythm
Seasons
Berlin
Minimalist

Appearance: Configuration
Site tagline
Homepage txt
Footer Text

Appearance:
Navigation
Chose what to show in your
navigation bar
Chose your landing/home page.
Add a link to the navigation bar.

Appearance: settings
Empty Elements
Empty Elements
Element set heading
Element set heading

Users
- Several people can work on same
project.
- Assign roles to users:
Super: access all pages.
Administrator: all pages except
admin “Settings”.
Contributor: Add and edit items.
Create exhibits using any item in
the archive, and have permission
to see any public exhibit from the
administrative side.
Researcher: Can see everything
but cannot edit anything.

Prepare items for Upload
Access vs Preservation.
Preprocessing
Media Files Recommendations:
◦ Videos:
◦ mp4 is the best supported across browsers and platforms
◦ ogg is not well supported on mobiles, on IE and Safari.
◦ Audios:
◦ .mp3 compressed audio with wide support
◦ .mp4 container => .m4a
◦ File formats which result in a download link, rather than an embedded playback, include:
◦ Video: avi, wmv
◦ Audio: aiff (except Safari), midi, wma

Reformatting tools
Open source tools:
◦ For resizing images (batch): GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/ + Bimp plugin for batch processing.
◦ For audio and video: HandBrake : https://handbrake.fr/
Size recommendations:
Image : 190-500 Kb
Audio and Video: Maximum 10 Mb.

Metadata
Metadata is the data used to aid the identification, description and location of your items.
Spend time thinking about the metadata you want to include with your object in advance.
Think about your audience and what kind of data will be useful to them when searching for your
items.
Be consistent across your site:
 If by “date” you mean creation date, keep it this way for all your items.
 If you choose to put author name last, first keep it this way for all of your items.

Omeka and Metadata
Characteristics of Dublin Core:
 Simplicity
 Interoperability
 International Consensus
 Extensibility
 Metadata Modularity on the Web
• DC elements are optional
• DC elements may be repeated
• Mapping from other schemas

Collections
Collections are "buckets" that will store your items together in one
place and allow you to find them quickly.
Create your collections
Assign your items to the available collections

Exercise 1
1. Download gimp and Bimp to resize your images.
2. Download handbrake to resize audios and videos.
3. Upload your items to Dropbox.
4. Get the url for each item by sharing and copying the shareable link.
5. Replace the 0 at the end of the link with 1 do get direct access to the item.
6. Create an excel sheet and start describing your data (metadata):
Item Title | Description| Author| Publisher | Date| Type| Size | Rights |Keywords| URL
7. Save you sheet in csv (comma delimited) format.

Plugins
Plugins are tools to extend the
basic functionality of Omeka.
Omeka.net has 15 free plugins.
 You will install and configure
each one, uninstall and deactivate
it.

Plugins: CSV Import
 Available for all plans
 Import items from a simple csv file
 Map the csv columns data to elements, files or tags.
 Each row in the file represents metadata for a single
item

Exercise 2
1. Install CSV Import
2. Upload the csv file you
created earlier.
3. Do not tick “Automate
Column Names to Elements”
unless your elements are
Dublin Core.
4. Do not tick “Select Item
Type” unless all of your items
have the same type: i.e. all
are still images.

Exercise 2 (continued)
6. Map your elements to Dublin Core
schema.
7. The url field cannot be mapped,
tick “file” in third column.
8. If you have a tag element, it cannot
also be mapped, tick “tag” in second
column.
9. HTML column is ticked only when
you want to change the font or size of
your elements. We do not usually do
that, so no need to tick it.

Plugin: CoinS
The COinS plugin embeds citation metadata into the pages of your Omeka.net site for each item.
When activated, the COinS plugin makes your items viewable to certain online bibliographic
tools such as Zotero by automatically embedding citation metadata in your website.

Plugin: Simple Pages
Allows you to easily create web pages for your public site using a
simple form.
Requires no programming knowledge
Allows users to add basic HTML markup.
Allow to create simple subpages under pages and re-order them.

Online Collections vs Exhibitions
“What separates and exhibition from a collection is that an
exhibition has a tight connection that is vital; otherwise, a
virtual exhibition will “amount to little more than
disorganized and decontextualized digital collections”
(Silver 1997, 826).

Exhibition
It starts with an idea:
Anniversaries of births, deaths, or significant events in people’s lives
Notable events in the life of an institution or region
Specific materials from a certain collections or subcollections
Treasures
Work done by various departments of the library, archives or other departments of the
institution.
Each of the ideas above can be tailored and focused to reflect the strengths of your individual
library or archive.

Planning
Sticky notes are a
great way to visualize
your ideas

Concept Diagram
Draft concept diagram for a possible
exhibition about sharks. Sticky notes
more rearranged to determine a more
organized system with logic trails and
connectors between each idea.
Image courtesy of Polly Mckenna-Cress

Plugin: Exhibit
Install Exhibit builder plugin.
This is the exhibit structure:

Plugin: Social Bookmarking
The Social Bookmarking plugin inserts a customizable list of social networking
sites below each item or collection in your Omeka.net site
Activate the Plugin
Configure it : Item or Page Level.
Choose the social media you want display.

Plugin: Reports
The Reports and Bar Codes plugin allows users to generate a report
list of items in HTML or a PDF with QR-style bar codes associated
with select items.
A report is a named set of items of your choice.
 You can create reports that encompass all items in the system, or
choose to report on one specific item, one collection, or by a search
term.
Reports will automatically update as new items are added to
Omeka.

Publicizing your site
Does not show in google search.
Google needs to find it to index it.
Site needs to be linked from other pages (i.e. library page) known by
google.

References
oCobourn, A. (28 march 2016). Spreading Awareness of Digital Preservation and Copyright via Omeka-based Projects. The
Journal of the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from
https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/spreading-awareness-of-digital-preservation-and-copyright-via-omeka-based-
projects/.
oDCMI Metadata Terms (1995). Retrieved from http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/
oHelp for Omeka.net. (2010). Retrieved from http://info.omeka.net/
oMartin R Kalfatovic, Creating a winning online exhibition : a guide for libraries, archives, and museums (2002), Chapter 1-
3, Chapter 8, and Appendix B: "Online Exhibitions Versus Digital Collections," "The Idea," "Executing the Idea," "Design,"
and "Sample Exhibition Script.“
oMcKenna-Cress, P., & Kamien, J. (2013). Creating exhibitions: collaboration in the planning, development, and design of
innovative experiences. John Wiley & Sons.

OMEKA

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