The hard-working Omeka team is happy to announce the release of some updated and brand new plugins!
This round of releases emphasizes our commitment to the public part of public humanities. In different ways, they all help to make your collections more visible or reusable, and to make the public more engaged with them. This is the first round of such plugins, but more will be coming soon.
The Reports plugin has been updated for Omeka 2.0. It lets you generate reports for information about your items, as well as QR codes to help spread the word.
Social Bookmarking, which lets you share and like on many social networks, is also updated with a bug fix.
The Embed Codes plugin is designed to help others make use of your items in other contexts. Just as you might embed a YouTube video in your own blog or website, this plugin allows visitors to embed information about your items in their own online spaces. Links back to your site are included in the embedded content, and administrators can track where their content is embedded and watch the views increase.
User Profiles allows site administrators to create structured forms for users to create profiles. These are highly customizable, and can be made public or private depending on the information you want to share with the world.
Finally, Guest User is a plugin that creates a new role in Omeka, allowing site visitors to get an account on the site without having access to the administrative back end. This allows developers and site builders to create new ways for site visitors to interact with the site. For example, if the Commenting plugin is installed, guest users’ can be given permission to comment without leaving comments open to the world of spam. And, if User Profiles is also installed, those users can share more information about themselves with their fellow commenters.
We’re hard at work on new and improved plugins to help you create more interest, discussion, and engagement around your Omeka sites. More to come!