How To: Exhibits

Build an Exhibit

Getting Started

Exhibits in Omeka help you to create online presentations, such as a museum exhibit or an illustrated essay. Exhibits are comprised of sections and each section contains pages. You may create as many sections and pages per exhibit as you like.

1. Click on the Exhibits tab in the top nav bar of the Admin interface, and click the "Add Exhibits" button on the right side. You will arrive at an Exhibit Metadata page. Fill in the empty fields.

Exhibit Slug (no spaces or special characters): This is the exhibit name as it appears in the website URL, for example, http://youromekainstalltion.org/exhibits/myexhibitname

Exhibit Credits: These will appear with description on the public site.

Exhibit Description: An introduction to the entire exhibit that appears on the public site.

Exhibit Tags: Tags help associate exhibits with other items in your archive.

Exhibit is featured: Will this exhibit be featured on the browse exhibit page?

Exhibit is public/not public: NB: If you are designing the exhibit in stages, you probably do not want to make your exhibit public.

Exhibit Theme: Choose an overall look for the exhibit. You may edit the theme's CSS to change exhibit design elements. See also, Creating_an_Exhibit_Theme and Creating_an_Exhibit_Layout

NB: If you want the exhibit to retain the same design theme as the rest of your site, do not choose a new theme.

Sections

2. To proceed with your exhibit, you must create sections so click "Add a Section."

3. A field for a title will appear. After you title the new section, click "Add a Section" again and it should appear under the Exhibit Section heading on that page.

4. To add text and items to an exhibit section, click the "edit" button to the right of the section title. From there, add a description/introduction/summary and create an optional URL slug for this section. The next step is to add pages to your section.

Pages

5. Click "Add a page" and pick a layout for presenting different combinations of interpretative text and items from the archive. Click once on the layout and hit "Choose this Layout." You will be taken to an interface to build a page. You may choose different layouts for each page to suit your project's needs.

6. On the left you will find your archived items. You may browse or search for specific items you want for the exhibit page. Once you find an item, drag it onto the page layout on the right. Smaller square boxes are for items. To change items, drag another item over the existing one. To remove an item, click the minus sign. Longer rectangular boxes are for text. Type or paste text directly into the box. Item descriptions do not appear as exhibit text.

NB: Thumbnail previews are created only for image files in exhibit pages. If you want to include an item that is a PDF, you also want to upload a small image file first that can act as an illustration of that PDF to appear in the items/show and exhibit page.

7. Before navigating away from this screen, be sure to save your work by clicking one of the two save options at the bottom of the screen. You do not need to complete the page, but please remember to save.

8. "Save and Add another Page" returns you to page layouts and allows you to choose one for the next exhibit page. "Save and Return to Section" takes you back to the exhibit section where you will find the pages you added.

9. Once you are finished adding pages to a section, be sure to hit "Save and Return to Exhibit." From here you may create new sections or "Save and Finish."

Editing Exhibits

10. Once an exhibit, section, or page is created, it may be edited at any time. To edit pages, first click edit next to the appropriate exhibit, then edit the proper section to get to the pages from that section.

When the exhibit is ready for your online visitors, don't forget to make it public.