Beyond the Museum
- Tom Scheinfeldt
- 11.19.2007
A few commentators have noted that Omeka’s potential could extend far beyond small history museums, for instance to archaeology and ePortfolios. In fact we have always intended Omeka to be used not only for history museum exhibitions, but also by enthusiast collectors, scholars, libraries, and community groups in many fields—really anyone interested in collecting and displaying digital objects in rich visual and interpretive environments. One good example of Omeka’s flexibility is the community site braddockheritage.org, which was developed in concert with CHNM by local volunteers in the Braddock district of Fairfax County, VA.
As a free and open source product, what we really want for Omeka is for the community of users and developers to take the software in directions we haven’t even thought of. To this end, we encourage you to post your ideas in the forums, and as you use Omeka in new ways, we hope you will post personal accounts, use cases, and links there as well. Ultimately, we hope you will extend the software through new plugins and themes and give those add-ons back to the community by posting them in the soon-to-be-released add-ons directory. Omeka’s modal use case is a small history museum, but braddockheritage.org shows that it can be used for other purposes, even by individual and non-institutional users, to do fantastic things.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
First, I need to start by saying that I’ve only heard about this program yesterday and am on the waiting list for the program - with the hopes to start exploring it in December. So my comments are first impressions only.
I am deeply concerned about the platform. When you say “small museum”, in rural Minnesota that means the loan aranger, if not smaller. Looking at the list of requirements and the upgradding procedures this looks as though a dedicated Linix compuiter and an IT specialist is needed. Is that the case? At least on the surface, this appears cost-prohibitive for the small museum.
Am I missing something in the percieved hardware requirements and IT specialist needs? Can a moderatly informed computer user do all that is needed to get the program installed, updated, and running and can that be put on a PC that is also running windows?
November 20th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Susan,
Thank you for your comments and I can understand your concerns. I worked at a museum that was prohibited from running anything that was not windows-based.
We plan to host a version of Omeka by early 2009, so that organizations that do not have a Linux server can use their own Omeka installation hosted on ours. Minnesota Historical Society may also be able to help you with hosting. Once installed, the administrative side of Omeka has a web interface accessible from any Mac or PC. You could log into your Omeka archive from home or the office, using a Mac one day and a PC the other.
We are still in the early stages of testing this and so we ask for your patience as we work through the challenges of launching this free and open source program.
Sheila
November 20th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Susan-
Thank you for your interest in Omeka. Omeka is being designed with the needs of small institutions in mind. Currently Omeka is designed for download and installation on a standard Linux server. Institutions without a Linux server can install the software on any one of several low-cost shared hosting services. A Dreamhost account (http://www.dreamhost.com/), for example, starts at $5.95 per month. Installation should take no more than ten minutes for someone with relatively modest computer skills. Once the software is installed and running on the server, it will work with any operating system — Mac, Windows, Linux. Our intention here is to make launching an Omeka collection exhibition as easy as setting up a Wordpress blog.
Alternately, once we have officially launched the downloadable version of Omeka, we will start working on a hosted version of the software. This will allow users without any server at all, or who aren’t interested in installing and configuring the software themselves, to sign up for an Omeka account via the web. This will make launching an Omeka site as easy as signing up for a Blogger account.
I hope this answers your concerns.
Tom Scheinfeldt
November 30th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Thank you! This is very helpful and I am looking forward to working with the program.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
I look forward to seeing the hosted version of Omeka get up and running - I’ve got some old heritage survey data that lives on my desktop GIS that I’d love to get up and live on the net.