I am working on a project and have decided to use Omeka for registry purposes. However, I am unfamiliar with the software, and even though it looks easy to use, I prefer someone with experience and the right know-how to set up the basics for me, just to get me started listing items.
For now, I am just looking to have the basic “infrastructure” ready to start entering items. I don’t really care about how the website looks (at least, for now), just about proper categorization, filters, metadata, advanced search, and geolocation/mapping (tools).
To give you a basic idea of what I would like. Some of these things are basic features of Omeka Classic and a click of a button away, but I have included them to give you a complete picture:
Have items divided into collections, for example “monuments”
Each items is then subdivided into a category of its own, for example “religious buildings”, and ideally, even narrowed down further, e.g. “church”. I am not sure if this is possible though, there are “elements” and “item types”, but not sure how to properly nest everything to achieve what I want.
Other data that each item page should include:
Title of the monument in the main language, which is English, and optionally one or two additional languages (I can enter it right below the English title, but I don’t know if that’s best practice for SEO purposes. Should each language for example have its own field with associated language code?).
Year it was built/period it belongs to (date).
Description.
Registration number / ID (e.g. a national registration number).
Internal registration number / ID (for own administration).
Tags.
Photos / docs, downloadable item report.
All of the data above should be searchable, ideally in an advanced search form where users can narrow it down by collection, type, sub-type, year, etc.
That’s about it.
Can anyone help with this? I already have a domain, hosting, and the app + most of the available Omeka Classic plugins (and some additional themes) installed.
Regarding what you describe as “subdividing” categories, you might want to look here to see what Southwest Harbor Public Library’s Digital Archive does for subject hierarchies. We developed our hierarchy based on a small subset of Nomenclature 4. So for church, we use Structures, Civic, Church. But you could adapt it to your domain e.g. Monuments, Religious, Church.
Did you look for the Omeka S? It is really a major improvement. In particular, it supports multi-language metadata natively and the mapping module is simpler and better than the Geolocation one. For tag and collections, Omeka S supports multi-collections natively, there is a module for tags, and you can do extensive search too. And of course, it is as simple as Omeka classic to install.
I’m currently working on the migration of items and exhibitions from an Omeka Classic installation with custom developments to an Omeka S one for an university library. So far, I’m very pleased with Omeka S and how it handles metadata. I agree with @Daniel_KM .
Feel free to contact me privately, should you need specific help.
Thank you for this suggestion. I use ReclaimHosting because it is (for now) still a fairly small/medium-sized project. ReclaimHosting supports a one-click installation for Omeka Classic, which allowed me to get started right away. Is it just as easy, or still fairly easy, to get Omeka S up and running with ReclaimHosting?
I have Omeka Classic up and running. It took +/- 8 hours of reading, puzzling, categorising, and creating item types and metadata fields, but I have a basic “infrastructure” ready to start entering data. It would have been great if there were an (embedded) gallery feature, but that seems to be missing (at least, I can’t find it). The website looks terrible, but looks are for later; the “inside” matters most for now :).
I have one final question:
I exported one of the listed items as a CSV file. There is a “CSV Import” plugin for Omeka Classic. Can I use the exported CSV file as a base file for bulk-importing items to my website? I can test it of course, but I am worried it might break the website.
Are you still looking for someone? Maybe I could help you
Best practise is to use only one Heading 1 text so it only depends if you would type it as a normal text or as a heading.
About rest of the requirements I believe it can be easy to implement it.
If you need any help please text me.
