Since launching Omeka.net last spring, nearly 1500 users are working on more than 1,000 new websites. Many of these sites are works-in-progress created by historians, librarians, archivists, enthusiasts, educators, and students.

Here are a few examples of what people are building and sharing in their Omeka.net sites.

• Robert & Monnoyer: French Botanical Artists of the 17th Century, created to complement and promote a spring 2011 exhibit of materials from the Dumbarton Oaks Rare Book Collection.
• Fire Files Digital Library, built as a personal project by a professional librarian.
• Eastern Oklahoma Tuberculosis Sanatorium, created by family members of former patients at EOTS.
• About Deseronto (Ontario), launched as a community history project managed by the Deseronto Archives
• Presidential Visits to Charlotte , created by graduate student and librarian as a digital component of a physical exhibit at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte J. Murrey Atkin Library.

Curious to know whether Omeka.net will serve the needs of your new project? Sign up for a free, basic account and start playing with the software.

After more than two years of planning and development, and six months of Alpha testing, CHNM is pleased to announce the public launch of Omeka.net Beta. Anyone may sign up for an account today.

Omeka.net is a hosted web service that brings standards-based online collections and exhibitions to the internet cloud. Simply create a username and password at http://omeka.net, and your online collection or exhibition website is up and running. Similar to cloud-based content management services offered by WordPress.com, Blogger, and PBWorks—but geared to the needs of scholarship and cultural heritage—no server or programming experience is required to launch an Omeka.net website. With Omeka.net, users can build digital exhibits, map photographs, collect memories from web audiences, or publish new scholarship in a few easy steps.

Omeka.net will offer five plans for users that include a range of options from building one site using a few plugins and themes to deploying an unlimited number of sites that uses an extensive set of add-ons and designs. These plans, including a basic free option, are available to accommodate a variety of individual and institutional users.

Omeka.net is an outgrowth of the Omeka project, in partnership with Minnesota Historical Foundation and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Library of Congress, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

We are very excited to announce that the Omeka.net Alpha has launched! The Omeka and Omeka.net teams have been working hard during the past few months to develop this new hosted service.

The current Omeka.net Alpha showcases Omeka’s core functionality: building a website with an archive of items. This means that our earliest testers may build an archive and configure the public design themes. Users may now upload a logo, customize a site’s navigation, and add homepage text simply by configuring a theme in the admin settings. Slick! No plugins are yet available, but soon we will roll them out in small batches for all users to try.

Alpha testers: we are relying on you to provide us with feedback on your Omeka.net experience to help make it better for everyone else.

If you requested an invitation, keep your eyes out for an email from Omeka.net (check spam filters) in the coming weeks. We will slowly roll out invitations throughout the alpha period.

If you did not request an invitation, have no fear. In Fall 2010, we will launch the public beta, which will be available to everyone. Then, your Omeka.net site will be just one click away!

The Omeka team is reaching for the clouds. After more than a year of planning and development, we are very pleased to announce the impending arrival of Omeka.net, a hosted web service that will bring standards-based online collections and exhibitions to the internet cloud. Be first in line for an invitation to try the free Omeka.net Alpha, including a special bundle of plugins, themes, and storage, when it launches in April.

Omeka.net will expand Omeka’s current offerings with a completely web-based service. No server or programming experience required. Similar to services offered by WordPress, the popular open-source blogging software, with the launch of Omeka.net users will be able to sign up for a free hosted Omeka site. Just create a username and password, and your online collection or exhibition is up and running.

This new hosted web service will further the Omeka project’s mission to make collections-based online publishing more accessible to small cultural heritage institutions, individual scholars, enthusiasts, educators, and students.

With Omeka.net, your online exhibit is one click away.

Sign up today.