I have been looking at the Omeka S sandbox as well as signed up for a trial of Classic, however I am still unsure of which would work best for my project.
I have been given a database table containing information about a large number of photos as well as links to the photos which are stored in a folder. The photos are organized into collections in the table based on a collection name field.
What we want to be able to do is to search, and also view the collections and images within each collection. When browsing or searching for an image, we would like to have thumbnails displayed with some of the info (only a few fields) from the table. Upon clicking on the thumbnail, we’d like to view a larger version of the image with all the corresponding information from the table.
I’m a little confused as to what version of Omeka would work best. Does anyone have any suggestions or examples that I can view of sites using Omeka that are doing what I am looking to do (or something similar)?
The basics of what you’re describing work for both Omeka S and Omeka Classic.
In terms of these collections - do images exist in only one collection, or is an image sometimes in multiple collections? In Omeka Classic, you can only have an item in on Omeka Collection, whereas in Omeka S, an item can be in multiple item sets.
Is Dublin Core (plus item type metadata) sufficient to describe your items, or do you need an additional specialist vocabulary?
On a different note, you say you’ve been exploring the sandbox and Omeka.net. Does one of the admin interfaces make more sense to you? If you go through the process of adding an item and creating a collection/item set, does one of the two feel more “right”?
Each image exists in only one collection. I don’t know if this will change at any point.
I understand that Dublin Core is meta data, but I don’t know much about it. When I try to import my csv file containing the data relating to the images, it asks me to map the fields. Some Dublin Core fields work, but I’m not sure if they will all work,… possibly. When importing, do I need to map all the fields in my table? If so, there are more fields than there are Dublin Core fields. Can one Dublin Core field be assigned to more than one field in my table?
I was able to easily add a collection in Classic and add individual items to it. Not completely sure how to import my csv file though in order to get all the needed data and not have to type it in. If I can import the csv file, will each record go in as an item and do I have to add each image associated with the record separately?
S looks a little more difficult to use. Maybe that’s just on first glance though.
Sorry for all the questions. Thanks for your help.
For CSV import, we have both written documentation and a screencast. If you do not map the information from the csv to something in Omeka, the data in that column/field will not be imported into your Omeka site.
S is slightly more complicated to get started with, and requires more thought to create a public side for your content.
Thank you again! The video explains almost everything I need to know regarding uploading images.
Just a couple further questions:
The video relates to the Omeka Classic version and mentions using the CSV 2.0 plugin which allows you to add a file to each imported item by adding the file path in the CSV file for each necessary record. Does the CSV Import module or something else in Omeka S that allow you to do the same?
If I want to import the data in my CSV and there are more fields in my CSV file than there are Dublin Core fields, can I map more than 1 field from my CSV file to the same Dublin Core field? If not, maybe this would be a reason for me to look further into Omeka S.
Both CSV Import for Classic and CSV Import for S can import files which are accessible on the internet via a stable filepath (they cannot pull from your local computer).
Yes, you can map more than one column to the same Dublin Core property. They will show up as separate inputs (it’s the same as editing an item and using “add input” on a property).
