Robbie Blitz, Digital Projects Librarian and Melanie Wacker, Metadata Coordinator, joined us today to discuss Columbia’s Omeka workflow and metadata procedures. As we move into the nuts and bolts of building our Omeka site, we wanted a lesson in how the organization builds exhibitions for the public.
CUL has 29 Omeka exhibits. The library chose Omeka platform because it is free, open-source software with an active development community; it is easy to use; and staff can build exhibitions containing digital assets and metadata. In the future, all items in Omeka exhibitions will go into our Fedora institutional repository.
The Image Lab in the library will digitize objects from our collections for the Morningside project. To do this, the Image Lab needs a spreadsheet listing all items for imaging. This spreadsheet also doubles as our metadata record. By using the spreadsheet we can bulk upload our metadata into an Omeka exhibit and also populate the Fedora repository. Image Lab creates archival tiffs and jpg derivatives.
To get the project started, we will submit the Gallery Planning Form to newproject@libraries.cul.columbia.edu prior to beginning work on an exhibition for the Morningside project.
Complete metadata is important for discoverability. Most Omeka creators in the Columbia library do not enter metadata directly into Omeka, but use a spreadsheet instead. I have created a shared Google spreadsheet Morningside — objects & metadata for our project. Please begin putting items you find in our collections into the spreadsheet.
The Libraries Digital Program Division (LDPD) is currently working on implementing the Omeka | Fedora connector. The goal is to upgrade to Omeka 2.0 and integrate Neatline this summer.
Resources
Howto build an exhibit
Omeka data dictionary
Morningside
spreadsheet - objects & metdata
Metadata
Resources
