Hierarchy and features for those with archival collections

Recently the Omeka Dev Team has released a Hierarchy module for Omeka S that should be of interest to users who are working with archival collections. Inherently Omeka S has a flat data model. Items may be associated with many Item Sets, but Item Sets cannot contain other Item Sets. Now with the Hierarchy module, users can indicate relationships among Item Sets in a nested fashion. Thus, a user might create logical groupings of items that reflect their physical organization in an archives (record group/collection, series, box, folder, etc.). Of course, users may create as many hierarcies and in as many organizational structures as they like. Then, once the hierarchies are created, a user may add them to item or item set pages by adding a resource page block, or by adding them to individual site pages with a page block.

The release of the Hierarchy module is the first in a number of steps that the Omeka Team is taking to support users who work with archival collections. For those who wish to describe archival materials, we recommend considering Records in Context as a linked data vocabularly. Then, that model may be deployed to create Resource Template to describe collections, agents, and archival materials. Furthermore, the Omeka Dev Team has a number of additional modules planned. Matthew McKinley is already working on a connector module for Archivematica, so that users of that system can import their materials into Omeka S. We are also eager to develop a connector for ArchivesSpace. If there are users who have active ASpace instances and are willing to join us in developing requirements for the module, we would like to hear from you.

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