Humanities Data,

Collections,
+ Omeka

What is data?

What is a database?

What is an algorithm?

Databases --> Collections

Humanities data collections is a useful term and digital strategy to emphasize the ways that humanists engage with data (think Trevor Owens and Miriam Posner):  

  • emphasizes the construction of databases
    • Owens' database as text idea
       
  • emphasizes the selection and presentation of information 
    • Posner's photo album example
       
  • emphasizes that there is not one neat narrative, but rather multiple (Sheila Brennan)
    • either through the items in the collection, pathways through (searching, pages, etc.), or both

What is Omeka?

Free and Open-source

Content Management System (CMS)

for displaying digitized collections

and building exhibits.

September 11 Digital Archive, Digital Memory Banks, and Content Management Systems

Original Website: https://web.archive.org/web/20020329071837/http://911digitalarchive.org:80/

 

Current Omeka site: https://web.archive.org/web/20190506031325/http://911digitalarchive.org/

 

Other DMBs: 

Blackout History Project: http://blackout.gmu.edu/home.html

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: http://hurricanearchive.org/

Occupy Archive: http://occupyarchive.org/

Baltimore Uprising: https://baltimoreuprising2015.org/

Trump Protest Archive: http://trumpprotestarchive.com/

What is metadata?

Data about data.

Dublin Core Metadata Schema 

A particular set of metadata standards used by many cultural heritage institutions.

 

Assists in searching and discoverability across the web.

Anatomy of an Omeka Site

Items: most basic unit in the site; described by Dublin Core and Item Type metadata and usually containing at least one media file

 

Collections: groups of items based on provenance, type, person, theme, or other project-specific unit; an item can only exist in one collection

 

Exhibit Builder: a plugin that allows you to display items with narrative/explanatory text, other plugins like maps or annotations, and a pathway through; items can belong to an unlimited amount of exhibits (unlike collections)

Let's explore one: http://omeka.philaathenaeum.org/ColorInACan/

Omeka Accounts

You have all been made contributors:

  • Have control over your own content but can only view content created by others.

  • You cannot make your own content public.

  • Able to add, edit, tag, and delete items you created.

  • Able to create your own exhibits from items in the site but cannot make it public.

Has everyone gotten their accounts set up? 

Omeka Demo

All steps taken today will be detailed in Omeka documentation and tutorial posted in Dropbox folder.

Related Resources

"Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5": https://rrchnm.org/essay/why-collecting-history-online-is-web-1-5/ 

 

"Collecting History Online": http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/collecting/

 

"What is Web 2.0": https://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html 

 

"What's Next for Digital Memory Banks?": http://www.lotfortynine.org/2013/05/whats-next-for-digital-memory-banks/#footnote_2_111