SQL interface for image collection?

Hello. I am volunteering my time as a computer programmer to assist a local historical society in upgrading their online digital image collection. I've reviewed enough of your documentation to have hopes that Omeka is what I'm looking for. Since I am not the web server admin, I can't simply install Omeka and try it, so could you please confirm that Omeka will fulfill my requirements below?

The institution has an online collection of around 6,000 images that are currently in a non-user-friendly set of albums. I would like to work with the archivist to create the metadata, and then give them a SQL-driven web interface for image display.

I envision three types of fields: Y/N, free text, and lookup. For instance, I might have a Y/N field named "library" that the archivist would check if that picture contained a library, a free text field named "Description" which would hold a narrative about the scene, and a lookup field named "Street" which the archivist could fill using a combo box linked to a table containing all streets in the town.

I would want to give web users a similar interface so that, for instances, they could see all images of libraries on Main Street by checking the "Libraries" box and selecting "Main Street" from the dropdown. I would also like to have dependent fields, e.g. have a second combo box named "Street Number" that repopulates itself whenever the selection in "Street" changes.

I see from the demo videos that I can define data types and fields however I like, but will Omeka allow me to do the sort of querying I specify above?

Thank you.

-Hugh Yeman

Omeka can do everything you've mentioned, but it doesn't do some of that out of the box.

Omeka generally gives you free-input boxes on the backend for metadata entry, but you can fairly easily override what form controls are used for any metadata field. See, for example, the Simple Vocab plugin, which lets you create a controlled vocabulary for data entry per metadata field.

As for the frontend, the already-existing advanced search page does some of what you're asking for, but to create a search interface more closely like what you mentioned, you could write your own search page in your public theme and include whatever interface you want. The underlying code that actually performs the search can easily filter on several metadata fields.

Long story short, the infrastructure is all there for what you want, but you may have to do some custom work for your particular interface needs.

Fantastic! Thank you. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm good at picking up new programming languages, so I'm confident that if the infrastructure allows it, I can do it.

Now, the question becomes "Can I sell this idea to the web admin, who has built the existing (quite unusable!) archive on PhotoPost?" I don't suppose there's a batch import option from PhotoPost, is there?