We are pleased to announce that the Center for History and New Media has received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create Omeka Commons. The grant, which comes from the Advancing Digital Resources category, will allow us to build upon the success of Omeka to create a centralized repository service that will meet the needs of smaller cultural heritage and scholarship organizations that often have difficulty creating, delivering, and sustaining online digital collections.
During this two-year pilot project, Omeka Commons will offer hosting and content backup services for a small test group of organizations. These Omeka users will have access to an easy one-click option for sending content to the Commons. At the same time, we will create an easy to navigate interface for general users to discover, use, and link to hosted digital collections and objects. Finally, Omeka staff will work with legal and technical advisors to evaluate metadata and licensing schema for the repository, and will produce a white paper with recommendations to guide future work.
Together, we believe that these efforts will provide models for breaking down the silos of digital cultural heritage content, serving the needs of both institutions and their users. And, we hope that you will join us in building this central place for discovery of our shared cultural commonwealth.
Read about all the 2010 IMLS National Leadership Grant Recipients.