Open-source online exhibit platform

September 10, 2008 7:40 PM

Omeka is a newly available, open-source web platform, bringing good-looking, functional online exhibitry within reach of smaller museums, libraries, and arts groups. From the Center for History and New Media.
posted by Miko (10 comments total)

I saw a presentation of this at the AHA conference in January. It looks like a pretty exciting and easy way for smaller institutions to put collections online. Check out some of the showcase sites built with Omeka--particularly Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives and Making the History of 1989: The Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

I am not seeing some of the cooler features that were demonstrated at the conference though. These included the ability to geotag every document--paper, photographic, whatever--and to display search results on a map. We also search results displayed on a time line. And there were some 2.0ish things, such as the ability of users to add their own tags to documents in the archives. Perhaps these features haven't been released yet?

The Center for History and New Media are the same folks who created Zotero, by the way. They rock.
posted by LarryC at 8:05 PM on September 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

From the zotero people?

Zotero is badass.
posted by notyou at 8:08 PM on September 10, 2008

Linux operating system as a requirement? You mean this will not work on an MAC Xserve? Hoo I'm so gonna flag this. So gonna.

(Looks really nice, actually)
posted by bonaldi at 8:22 PM on September 10, 2008

Heh, was just talking about doing a project on the way archaeologists can display their finds to the public in my class tonight. This could make for an interesting piece of that study.
posted by rbf1138 at 9:26 PM on September 10, 2008

Zotero rocketh ... I'm giving a staff demo next month on it and am delighted to be using the "synch" version ... (of course, I will have to fight tooth and nail to get our IT Dept to allow peopler to openly use Firefox so they can use Zotero, but that's a whole different story).

Looking at their specs; not sure why this is Linux only? Everything else can be found (easily! my desktop machine has all of it right now) on pretty much any Mac desktop machine that has shipped the past three years, with the exception of ImageMagick. But then, I've downloaded and installed that on so many Macs now that it's a walk in the park to get that running. Shoot, if there was someway we could get to go under MAMP, my Tower is ready for it ... gonna have to do some more digging here.

At least it's Linux and not That Other OS that's being required ... plus we CAN run it on a virtual machine (meaning, those old G5s can still be used.)

UPDATE AS I'M PREVIEWING:

http://omeka.org/forums/topic/imagemagick-fink-mac-os-x-etc


They're running it on a G4 iBook under OS X 10.5.4!

Oh, joy! This could THOROUGHLY distract me from my appointed rounds today!
posted by aldus_manutius at 5:42 AM on September 11, 2008

I am intrigued by this both for work (I've been doing an exhibit site for the Boston Museum of Science) and for me (I'm an artist whose site is currently built around a hacked-up copy of a photo gallery package that I keep on meaning to replace).

Sadly, the site seems to be completely overloaded right now - I read enough to get tantalized, but now I get nothing!
posted by egypturnash at 7:27 AM on September 11, 2008

Thanks for posting this-- I saw demos for Omeka (and Zotero) at a conference in March and got really fired up; and then they sort of got buried in mental silt as I got back into the normal workflow. Good to have them dug up.

If nothing else, the Omeka sticker looks really cool on my guitar case.
posted by COBRA! at 7:32 AM on September 11, 2008

And My Director hath gazed upon their site and sayeth unto me, "Lo, go and make it so ... " and we downloaded!

Time to rock and roll!
posted by aldus_manutius at 7:45 AM on September 11, 2008

Oh dear ... I think we've Slashdotted the server ...
posted by aldus_manutius at 7:49 AM on September 11, 2008

Miko, this is great. Thanks so much for posting this. I've sent the link to our entire Public History graduate department and I have a feeling that a number of folks are going to be giddy about what they can now accomplish.
posted by teleri025 at 10:45 AM on September 11, 2008