I’m pretty sure Omeka S is what I need for my history group(s).
But I’d like some guidance on the “public” side of things.
Each group would get their own site. Each site can have its own “look”. But…can their be a central “ALL” display of items, that is, could all the individual groups contribute to a single point of display?
Sorry this is not explained well. Basically, we would have 6-8 sites (representing states or territories). Each state would control their own data. But in some cases, we might all want to display a certain subject in one place.
I’m also sure that Omeka S is what you need for your History Groups.
Since the sites are resource selections presented on a theme-based interface with its own pages, the simplest approach is to create a “Global” site that retrieves all the resources from sites (Site > My Site > Resources).
Then you can choose to also retrieve all the collections, or create collections specifically for this site (by Group, for example). This doesn’t involve any changes to the search functionality, or perhaps, for the sake of perfection, a few adjustments to the search form to include the cataloging specificity of each group.
Next, you can either choose to make your ‘Global site’ the preferred entry point to other sites: by designating the ‘Global site’ as the default site in the admin and adding a ‘Group Sites’ page, for example, which lists the sites with the ‘List of Sites’ block. Or, you can leave it as ‘Site Index’ depending on the desired effect.