Week Seven: Omeka

This week we explored Omeka, a free content management system for online digital collections. Omeka is available in two formats, web based (omeka.net) and downloadable (omeka.org). There are various benefits to the web based version, such as the ability to create and collaborate on websites by displaying various collections, building exhibits, create simple web pages, share data through various feeds, and share collections with others. Also, the web based version of Omeka is extremely easy to use and requires very little technical knowledge.

Omeka is commonly used by libraries, museums, and other historical societies. Some of the more notable libraries that use Omeka are the New York Public Library and the Newbery library in Chicago. For a complete list of sites that use Omeka, click here.

While investigating Omeka I stumbled across 1886, a digital library of the University of Bordeaux in in France that uses the software to manage their vast collection of books and pictures. The first thing I noticed upon visiting the site is that it’s laid out in such a way that it’s very easy to use. You can really see the benefit to using software such as Omeka. The site is broken up into different collections including a map library and a section on archaeology and art history. The library chose the year 1886 as its name because 1886 signifies a very important time in France’s history. It was a year that France was undergoing a lot of change. Many things were happening, new technologies and ideas were flourishing.

So, as a student, you may be wondering why you would want to use Omeka. Well, I was wondering the same thing, and apparently it has many uses such as publishing essays or digital dissertations, sharing primary sources with other students, and collaborating with others all of which can be done using easy to use websites and themes provided by Omeka. In addition, there are a wide range of plugins that work with Omeka such as dropbox, geolocation, and Docs Viewer.

For a general overview of the features and use of Omeka, I encourage you to watch the video below.