Omeka

This time we bring you a theme based on the Bracero History Archive. Go grab the Braceros Santa Fe theme from the directory.

Omeka made an eventful showing at RepoCamp last Friday. Sponsored by the Common Repository Interfaces Group (CRIG), RepoCamp was a “free and open event where folks who are interested in managing and creating digital repository software and their contents can gather and share ideas, innovations, trials and tribulations.” Many people expressed interest in Omeka and, more importantly, made suggestions about how it could be made better.

One thing that struck me was CRIG’s tagline: “The coolest thing to do with your data will be thought of by someone else.” This humbling yet pragmatic expression befits Omeka’s focus on an open and active community. We readily acknowledge that our users have some of the best ideas about how to use Omeka to its fullest potential. We get great ideas almost every day from our forums and our dev list. And the people at RepoCamp came up with some ingenious ways to harness new standards and technologies to improve and enhance our software. It is unmistakable that the coolest things being done with Omeka is done by you, our users.

You may find that on some days you want to upload many files into your installation, but, the laziness of summer kicks in and you really don’t want to create new items or associate those files with items at that moment. No problem. The dropbox plugin gives you that flexibility and allows you to upload multiple files into Omeka where they will wait patiently until you (or another user) are ready to deal with them. The dropbox handles volume quite well and helps you to get around any file size restrictions placed upon you by the server administrator through the /items/add interface. If you haven’t already, take a look at the dropbox plugin .

Stay cool and don’t work too hard.

And the themes roll on….

Check out the final installment of the seasonal suite, Spring, over at the theme repository.

This week’s screencast demonstrates how to use the contribution plugin, which allows you to collect materials from your online visitors. This plugin invites your visitors to share in the creation of content, and to populate your Omeka digital archive with reflections and first-hand accounts.

If you are unfamiliar with collecting projects or want to see the contribution plugin in action, visit the following sites:

• April 16 Archive
• Catawba River Docs
• Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
• Katrina’s Jewish Voices