CombiningForces:
The Omeka for Art Historians Working Group

Sheila A. Brennan

Director of Strategic Initiatives Research Associate Professor

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media
@sherah1918

Getty Foundation
#DoingDAH14

Omeka Team | Working Group

Michele Greet, GMU

Kimon Keramidas, NYU

Barbara Mundy, Fordham

Meghan Musolff, Michigan

Miriam Posner, UCLA

Daniela Sandler, UMinn

Nathan Timpano, Miami

Project Goals

Convene working group of art historians using Omeka to advise on new dev & design
Design 3 new Omeka themes
Build a VRACore element set & Editorial Feedback plugin
Write documentation for using
Omeka for art history classes & research
Present at CAA!
Contribute to growing body of
digital art history work

Patterns of Work (plugins)

Scoping out requirements, requests, discussion in G-docs (first)

Patterns of Work (themes)

Scoping out some needs and wants (survey)

ArtHistoryDev

Created an Omeka testing site on RRCHNM dev server for working group members

Iterative Development

Develop/design, test, revise, re-test
with Omeka team + working group

3 New Themes

Editorial Plugin

Successes

Designing for targeted audiences is great!
Working with enthusiastic collaborators
On track to complete all deliverables
Making targeted intervention in digital art history initiatives

Please Try & Test!

Center Row: https://github.com/omeka/theme-centerrow
The Daily: https://github.com/omeka/theme-thedaily
Big Picture: https://github.com/omeka/theme-bigpicture/
VRA Core Element Set: https://github.com/omeka/plugin-VraCore/
Editorial Plugin: https://github.com/omeka/plugin-Editorial/releases/tag/v0.1.0-beta

Available today on GItHub

Omeka Addons Directory
(soon)

Challenges

New Themes and Plugins must work together w/existing core code & extensions
Plugin dev'd by other orgs (ie, Neatline) are out of our
control
Managing priorities w/other Omeka development
Somethings are harder than you think!
Everyone is busy.

Future of this Collaboration

Wrapping Up: April 30
Hoping to continue new relationships with working group members
Seeking other opportunities for collaboration on Omeka development or on art history projects.

Thank you!