Omeka

[Roy Tennant]

I use Omeka for a non-work site that I manage and I've found the lack
of a well-thought-out workflow for uploading and describing content to
be a real pain in the neck. To upload an item and describe it requires
clicking around into several different menus, inexplicably having to
set a metadata element in two separate locations, and other weirdness
that makes me think they spent little time documenting the optimum
uploading workflow before beginning to code.

Another pet peeve, which Karen Coyle alluded to, is the intransigent
nature of the metadata schema. They took Dublin Core whole-cloth (but
the simple version) and offered no way to remove elements that you
never use or to add ones that you would like to.

Also, as Michael Daul points out below, the templating model has
issues and the number of pre-cast template options that are offered
from the Omeka site are very few and seem to be all cut from the same
basic cloth. Therefore, to really make your site look different
requires some pretty heavy lifting.

Another annoyance is that there is no "login" link displayed, so you
have to hack the template to make it show up, which of course breaks
the next time you update the template.

In the end, the only reason I'm using it is that it's free, which is a
pretty poor reason for using just about anything. But at this point I
feel somewhat stuck with it, and I'm hoping the next version is a
serious upgrade.
Roy

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Michael Daul <michael.daul at duke.edu> wrote:
> Hi Christa – we use Omeka to manage our online exhibits at the library:
> http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/
>
> In general I think Omeka works well. The system offers some powerful
> features to handle metadata with large collection of items, and makes
> ingesting those collections a very simple and straightforward process. It's
> also extensible and free / open source (and the developer community seems
> active, but not very large) so those are great pluses in my book. The
> documentation and user forums are also really good:
> http://omeka.org/forums/; http://omeka.org/codex/Documentation
>
> However, I think a lot of the more basic 'CMS-y' features that Omeka offers
> could be better served via a different platform (wordpress, drupal, etc.).
> In particular, I've found the templating system to be overly complex from a
> developer perspective, and our end-users have tended to get confused when
> applying different layout options to exhibit pages from time to time. So
> unless your colleague specifically needs a system that specializes in
> dealing with large collections of items and their metadata, then I'd suggest
> that they check out something different. That being said, Omeka v2 is right
> around the corner, so perhaps it will address some of the problems I've had
> with it.
>
> Just my two cents…
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Michael
>
> +++
>
> Michael Daul
> Digital Projects Developer | Duke University Libraries
> michael.daul at duke.edu
> (919) 684-1710
>
> From: "Christa E. Van Herreweghe" <Christa at UCPL.LIB.MO.US>
> Reply-To: Jennifer Copeland <WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
> Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 3:56 PM
> To: Jennifer Copeland <WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Omeka
>
> Just wondering if anyone is using this and what you think of it. Acolleague
> isconsideringOmeka and asked me if I knew anything about it.  Since I
> don’t,Ithought it would be good to ask all the smartpeopleI know.
>
> http://omeka.org
>
> Omeka is a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the
> display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and
> exhibitions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Christa Van Herreweghe
>
> Assistant Director/IT Librarian
>
> University City Public Library
>
> www.ucpl.lib.mo.us
>
>
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> 2012-10-31
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2012-10-31