Session 8
Introduction to Omeka
Hodel Taught by Tobias Hodel.
In this session
- Omeka: publishing a collection
- Data standards and controlled vocabularies in practice
- The Omeka API
- What to use when: GitHub Pages or Omeka?
Omeka
- Omeka Classic and Omeka S — what the difference actually means for you
- Items, item sets, media, sites
- Templates and exhibits: presenting a collection as an argument
- Users and permissions, for projects with more than one person
Data standards
Omeka is built on Dublin Core, which makes the abstractions from the Intro concrete:
- Filling in the fifteen elements for a real object — and noticing which ones fight you
- Resource templates: constraining what may be entered, and why constraint helps
- Controlled vocabularies: attaching values from GND, Getty AAT, GeoNames or Wikidata instead of typing strings
- Linking items to each other, and to the outside world
The API
- The Omeka S REST API: reading and writing items
- Bulk import from CSV
- Getting your data back out — the test of any publication platform
What to use when
An honest comparison, since you now have both:
| GitHub Pages | Omeka | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | a text-led argument, a small documented dataset | an object-led collection with rich metadata |
| Metadata | whatever you define | Dublin Core, enforced |
| Who can edit | anyone comfortable with Git | anyone with a login |
| Hosting | free, static, near-indestructible | needs a server and maintenance |
| Longevity | very high; it is just files | depends on whoever maintains the instance |
| Cost of exit | none | export, and hope |
The real question is not which is better. It is: who will maintain this in five years, and what happens when they stop?
ImportantFinal-year meeting (II) — 16:00
Students in their final year report on the status of their projects.
TipIn parallel in the Intro