Omeka Classic 101

Overview

The purpose of this website is to provide a basic overview of Omeka Classic, an open-source content management platform created and maintained by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. This website is specifically aimed at UNC SILS students, although hopefully it will be useful to other people wanting an introduction to Omeka Classic. This site will address some of Omeka Classic’s extended functionalities, which are facilitated through plugins such as Simple Pages and Exhibit Builder. Relevant documentation and readings are provided to address pragmatic and theoretical issues raised by Omeka Classic.

You can move through this website at your own pace. However, if you would like a more structured approach to this site and its content, I recommend breaking it into 4 weeks, completing one unit each week.

Note: This site was created in December 2020 and is not being consistently updated.

Objectives

From this website visitors will:

• Learn about and understand the basic functions of Omeka Classic
• Use Omeka Classic’s dashboard
• Understand the different user levels/privileges available
• Catalog items and assign items to appropriate collections
• Create pages in Omeka Classic
• Create exhibits in Omeka Classic
• Understand the larger context in which Omeka Classic exists and its potential uses and pitfalls

Course Content

Unit 1: Introduction to Omeka Classic and the Dashboard

Unit 2: Items, Collections, and Dublin Core

Unit 3: Pages and Exhibits

Unit 4: Uses and Future Potential

Readings

Manuals and Documentation:

• Omeka Classic User Manual
• Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (NISO Standard)
• Videos from the Omeka team

Omeka-Related Articles:

• Alexander, J. A. (2013). Wistfully waiting no more: An open source, exhibition building case study. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 33(3), 199–207. https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.33.4605.
• Antell, H., Corall, J., Dressler, V., & Gilgenbach, C. (2017). Extending Omeka for a large-scale digital project. Code4Lib Journal, 37. https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/12529.
• Ma, H. (2013). Tech services on the Web: Omeka; http://omeka.org. Technical Services Quarterly, 30(4), 438–439. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2013.819759.
• Maron, D., & Feinberg, M. (2018). What does it mean to adopt a metadata standard? A case study of Omeka and the Dublin Core. Journal of Documentation, 74(4), 674–691. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2017-0095.
• Marsh, E. (2017). Chickens, aprons, markets, and cans. Digital Library Perspectives, 33(4), 361–377. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-03-2017-0009.
• Matusiak, K. K., Tyler, A., Newton, C., & Polepeddi, P. (2017). Finding access and digital preservation solutions for a digitized oral history project. Digital Library Perspectives, 33(2), 88–99. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-07-2016-0025.
• Siddell, K. (2018). Documenting student life: Using Omeka to connect students to the University Archives. Codex (2150-086X), 4(4), 48–61. https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=fac_pub.
• Tomašević, A., Lazić, B., Vorkapić, D., Škorić, M., & Kolonja, L. (2017). The use of the Omeka platform for digital libraries in the field of mining. INFOtheca – Journal for Digital Humanities, 17(2), 26–49. https://doi.org/10.18485/infotheca.2017.17.2.2.
• Tzoc, E., & Ubbes, V. A. (2017). The Digital Literacy Partnership website: Promoting interdisciplinary scholarship between faculty, students, and librarians. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 23(2/3), 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2017.1333013.

Description-Related Articles*:

• Adler, M. (2016). The case for taxonomic reparations. Knowledge Organization, 43(8), 630–640. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2016-8-630.
• Antracoli, A. A., Berdini, A., Bolding, K., Charlton, F., & Ferrara, A. (2019). Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist description resources. https://archivesforblacklives.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/ardr_final.pdf. CC BY 4.0.
• Bak, G., Allard, D., & Ferris, S. (2019). Knowledge organization as knowledge creation: Surfacing community participation in archival arrangement and description. Knowledge Organization, 46(7), 502–521. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2019-7-502.
• Burke, M., & Zavalina, O. L. (2020). Descriptive richness of free‐text metadata: A comparative analysis of three language archives. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 57(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.429.
• Campbell, D. G., Guimarães, J. A. C., Pinho, F. A., Martínez-Ávila, D., & Nascimento, F. A. (2017). The terminological polyhedron in LGBTQ terminology: Self-Naming as a power to empower in knowledge organization. Knowledge Organization, 44(8), 586–591. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2017-8-586.
• Hajibayova, L., & Buente, W. (2017). Representation of indigenous cultures: Considering the Hawaiian Hula. Journal of Documentation, 73(6), 1137–1148. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2017-0010.
• Olson, H. (2001). The power to name: Representation in library catalogs. Signs, 26(3), 639–668. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3175535.
• Rigby, C. (2015). Nunavut Libraries Online establish Inuit language bibliographic cataloging standards: Promoting indigenous language using a commercial ILS. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 53(5/6), 615–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2015.1008165.
• Rinn, Meghan R. (2018). Nineteenth-Century depictions of disabilities and modern metadata: A consideration of material in the P.T. Barnum Digital Collection. Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies, 5, Article 1. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol5/iss1/1/.

*Please note that this list is very much a work-in-progress.