DOCSLIB.ORG

Omeka and the Nlm Digital Repository: a New Way of Creating Hmd-Curated Websites

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Omeka and the Nlm Digital Repository: a New Way of Creating Hmd-Curated Websites NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE OMEKA AND THE NLM DIGITAL REPOSITORY: A NEW WAY OF CREATING HMD-CURATED WEBSITES January-August 2011 Julie Adamo, Associate Fellow, 2010-2011 Project leaders: Jennifer Marill (Chief, Technical Services Division), Jeff Reznick (Deputy Chief, History of Medicine Division) Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Motivations ............................................................................................................................................... 5 HMD Ad Hoc Committee for Online Programs ....................................................................................... 5 R2 Consulting Report ............................................................................................................................... 5 Curated Websites ...................................................................................................................................... 6 What is Omeka? ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Why focus on Omeka? .............................................................................................................................. 7 Procedures ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 Results ........................................................................................................................................................... 9 Interviews .................................................................................................................................................. 9 HMD and Lister Hill Staff .................................................................................................................. 10 Theme 1: Ideas and visions ................................................................................................................. 10 Theme 2: Limitations with current system.......................................................................................... 10 Theme 3: Importance of investing in digital programs ....................................................................... 11 Theme 4: Thoughts on introducing Omeka or other comparable system ........................................... 12 Use Cases ................................................................................................................................................ 13 Proof-of-Concept Website ...................................................................................................................... 14 Omeka User Interviews ........................................................................................................................... 17 Smithsonian Libraries ......................................................................................................................... 17 University of Minnesota...................................................................................................................... 18 Discussion ................................................................................................................................................... 18 Future Directions .................................................................................................................................... 19 Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................................... 20 Appendix A: Use Cases .............................................................................................................................. 21 Appendix B: Original Project Proposal ...................................................................................................... 23 Appendix C: Interview Questions ............................................................................................................... 26 Appendix D: Contacts ................................................................................................................................. 28 Appendix E: Use Cases and Omeka ........................................................................................................... 29 Appendix F: Plug-ins and Features ............................................................................................................. 32 SocialBookmarking Plug-in .................................................................................................................... 32 2 Tagging ................................................................................................................................................... 33 Contribute Plug-in ................................................................................................................................... 34 Geolocation Plug-in ................................................................................................................................ 35 FedoraConnector Plug-in ........................................................................................................................ 36 Appendix G: Initial Introductory Letter to Interviewees ............................................................................ 37 Appendix H: Pertinent Correspondence ..................................................................................................... 38 Robbie Davis, Smithsonian Libraries ..................................................................................................... 38 Omeka Outreach Team ........................................................................................................................... 41 Appendix I: Other Omeka Websites ........................................................................................................... 44 Smithsonian Libraries: Journey Stories .................................................................................................. 44 University of Minnesota: Memorial Stadium, 1924-1992 ...................................................................... 45 Appendix J: HMD Ad Hoc Committee for Online Programs, Final Report ............................................... 46 3 Abstract Objective: In the midst of an expanding digitization program, the History of Medicine Division (HMD) seeks to find new ways to expose digital content on the web creatively and dynamically. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the viability of the Omeka web publishing platform at NLM, and also to develop a list of use cases or functionalities for any potential web publishing platform. Omeka is an open- source web publishing platform with a Fedora plug-in which should make it possible to use objects in NLM’s Digital Collections, built with Fedora Commons Repository software, for Omeka-driven web presentations. Additionally, the project aimed to gather insight from NLM staff on how to improve and enrich digital programs. Methods: A series of thirteen interviews with HMD staff, who contribute in various ways to digital programs, were conducted. From these interviews, a list of use cases was developed. Omeka’s viability and usability was tested through the development of a proof-of-concept website using digital objects and content from the Cholera Online project. The use cases were either tested in Omeka as part of the proof- of-concept, or evaluated based on either instructional documentation or direct questioning of developers. Interviews with two other libraries that have developed websites using Omeka validated our conclusions about Omeka’s capabilities and functionality. Results: Thirty-two use cases, or capabilities, were generated from the interviews and categorized according to three levels of priority, with the most frequently described use cases receiving the highest priority ranking. Narrative descriptions of interviews were also created, and are presented as four major themes: visions and ideas, limitations of current resources, importance of investing in digital programs, and thoughts on adopting Omeka or other new platform. Through the development of the proof-of- concept web site, it was determined that while Omeka is very successful as a standalone tool, and capable of meeting a majority of use cases, it did not reliably draw and display items from the Fedora-based Digital Collections repository. Conclusions: As NLM’s digitization program expands, and users are increasingly turning to the web for library services, it has become exigent for NLM to find new ways to expose digital content. Because it does not successfully interact with NLM’s Fedora-based repository, and requires more programming resources than are currently available, the results of this study do not support NLM’s adoption of Omeka at this time. This project has also highlighted the institutional need for web design skills, the issue most frequently discussed throughout interviews. Limitations of this study include the evaluation of a single web publishing platform and interviews focused on select staff in HMD. However, this project has outlined a series of use cases, as well as a collective vision, for digital
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Resolving Dilemmas Arising During Design and Implementation of Digital Repository of Heterogenic Scientific Resources
    applied sciences Article Resolving Dilemmas Arising during Design and Implementation of Digital Repository of Heterogenic Scientific Resources Tomasz Kubik 1,* and Agnieszka Kwiecie ´n 2 1 Faculty of Electronics, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wybrzeze˙ Wyspia´nskiego27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland 2 Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wybrzeze˙ Wyspia´nskiego27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: The creation of digital repositories for archiving and disseminating scientific resources faces many challenges. These challenges relate not only to the modelling of the processes of preparing, depositing, sharing, maintaining, and curating resources. They also face the feasibility of the adopted assumptions and final implementation. Such kind of issues become particularly important in the case of processing of resources containing multimedia. The critical factor then becomes a properly designed architecture that supports efficient data processing and universal data presentation. This article aims to answer questions that may arise when approaching various designing and implementation dilemmas, such as how to handle processes in a digital repository, how to use cloud solutions in its construction, how to work with user interfaces, and how to process collected multimedia. The presented study explores their practical context based on the experiences gained during the AZON platform’s implementation. This platform stores tens of thousands of scientific resources: books, articles, magazines, teaching materials, presentations, photos, 3D scans, audio and video files, databases, and many more. It serves as a running example for all presented proposals. Keywords: digital repository; multimedia processing; cloud architecture; scientific resources Citation: Kubik, T.; Kwiecie´n,A.
    [Show full text]
  • Digital Technologies for Documenting and Preserving Cultural Heritage
    and Digital Humanities Collection Development, Cultural Heritage, Cultural Heritage, Collection Development, DIGITAL TECHNIQUES FOR DOCUMENTING AND PRESERVING CULTURAL HERITAGE Edited by ANNA BENTKOWSKA-KAFEL and LINDSAY MacDONALD COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT, CULTURAL HERITAGE, AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES This exciting series publishes both monographs and edited thematic collections in the broad areas of cultural heritage, digital humanities, collecting and collections, public history and allied areas of applied humanities. In the spirit of our mission to take a stand for the humanities, this series illustrates humanities research keeping pace with technological innovation, globalization, and democratization. We value a variety of established, new, and diverse voices and topics in humanities research and this series provides a platform for publishing the results of cutting- Theedge aim projects is to illustrate within these the impact fields. of humanities research and in particular the cultural sector, including archives, libraries and museums, media and thereflect arts, the cultural exciting memory new networks and heritage developing institutions, between festivals researchers and tourism, and and public history. DIGITAL TECHNIQUES FOR DOCUMENTING AND PRESERVING CULTURAL HERITAGE Edited by ANNA BENTKOWSKA-KAFEL and LINDSAY MacDONALD Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress © 2017, Arc Humanities Press, Kalamazoo and Bradford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence. Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby The authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of their part of this work. granted provided that the source is acknowledged.
    [Show full text]
  • Where Digital Archaeology Might Go Next 167
    The Open Digital Archaeology Textbook Shawn Graham, Neha Gupta, Jolene Smith, Andreas Angourakis, Andrew Reinhard, Kate Ellenberger, Zack Batist, Joel Rivard, Ben Marwick, Michael Carter, Beth Compton, Rob Blades, Cristina Wood, & Gary Nobles 2020-07-11 2 Contents notice 5 About the Authors 7 Getting Started 11 Instructors: How to use this text ............................................ 11 Students: How to use this text ............................................. 11 How to contribute changes, or make your own version ................................. 12 How to access and use the computational environment ................................ 13 Colophon ....................................................... 13 Welcome! 15 1 Going Digital 17 1.1 So what is Digital Archaeology? ......................................... 19 1.2 Project Management Basics ........................................... 24 1.3 Github & Version Control ............................................. 26 1.4 Open Notebook Research & Scholarly Communication .............................. 31 1.5 Failing Productively ............................................... 37 1.6 The Ethics of Big Data in Archaeology ...................................... 39 1.7 Effective Collaboration .............................................. 40 2 Making Data Useful 45 2.1 Proper Prior Planning .............................................. 45 2.2 Designing Data Collection and Curation ..................................... 54 2.3 Cleaning Data .................................................
    [Show full text]
  • From OASIS to Samvera: Three Decades of Online Access to OSU's
    OLA Quarterly Volume 24 Number 4 Digital Repositories and Data Harvests 8-1-2019 From OASIS to Samvera: Three Decades of Online Access to OSU’s Archives and Special Collections Lawrence A. Landis Oregon State University Recommended Citation Landis, L. A. (2019). From OASIS to Samvera: Three Decades of Online Access to OSU’s Archives and Special Collections. OLA Quarterly, 24(4), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1958 © 2019 by the author(s). OLA Quarterly is an official publication of the egonOr Library Association | ISSN 1093-7374 From OASIS to Samvera: Three Decades of Online Access to OSU’s Archives and Special Collections by Lawrence A. Landis LARRY has been director Director, Special Collections of the OSU Libraries and and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Press’s Special Collections Libraries and Press and Archives Research [email protected] Center since 2011. He has worked as an archivist at OSU since 1991, and has been active with creating digital collections and online access to collections. Oregon State University has been a leader in making unique resources accessible via the Internet. Individually or with collaborative partners, OSU made collection information, exhibits and en- tire collections available online. This timeline article presents OSU’s major projects and develop- ments to promote online accessibility over the past thirty years. Background For several decades, Oregon State University has been at the forefront of making library and archives resources available online. Many of these efforts have been collaborative in nature; OSU has worked with a broad range of library and archives/special collections partners in Oregon and the Northwest.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhibiting Library Collections Online: Omeka in Context Juliet L. Hardesty
    Exhibiting library collections online: Omeka in context Juliet L. Hardesty Metadata Analyst Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana [email protected] © 2014 Juliet L. Hardesty This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Introduction For Indiana University (IU) Libraries, and for most libraries out there, our collections comprise more than just books. We have more than just a series of things on a shelf with descriptions that can be searched. We have items that are part of a larger donated set; we have original pieces that tell a story or are part of a story in history; we have art objects; we have sound and moving pictures; we have born digital items; we represent and reflect our community. All of these items are in the library (or gallery, archive, or museum) to be preserved, viewed, and researched. Many times, however, those goals are conflicting, particularly for physical items. Digital library efforts have pursued digitizing and providing some kind of online access to as much content as possible. These efforts can result in specialized web sites focused on a particular collection using functionality so specialized to the collection or metadata as to be unusable anywhere else. In the opposite direction, online access can come in the form of web sites focused solely on a format resulting in the loss of context and significance. How can we reveal the significance and context of individual items and provide access to them in a way that makes them more collectively available? Online exhibition tools allow libraries (along with galleries, archives, and museums) the opportunity to provide access to items that are fragile, popular, or both and that have a story to be shared, regardless of the digital management process.
    [Show full text]
  • In the Application for the Digital Methods for Military History
    OFFICE OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES Narrative Section of a Successful Application The attached document contains the grant narrative and selected portions of a previously funded grant application. It is not intended to serve as a model, but to give you a sense of how a successful application may be crafted. Every successful application is different, and each applicant is urged to prepare a proposal that reflects its unique project and aspirations. Program guidelines also change and the samples may not match exactly what is now required. Please use the current Notice of Funding Opportunity instructions to prepare your application. Prospective applicants to the Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities program should consult the current Notice of Funding Opportunity at https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/institutes-advanced-topics-in-the-digital- humanities for instructions. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to consult with the NEH Office of Digital Humanities staff well before a grant deadline. Note: The attachment only contains the grant narrative and selected portions, not the entire funded application. In addition, certain portions may have been redacted to protect the privacy interests of an individual and/or to protect confidential commercial and financial information and/or to protect copyrighted materials. Project Title: Digital Methods for Military History Institution: George Mason University Project Director: Abigail Mullen Grant Program: Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities 1 Digital Methods for Military History: An Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Proposal submitted by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media List of Participants • Abigail Mullen (project director), George Mason University • Christopher Hamner (instructor), George Mason University • Jean Bauer (instructor), independent contractor • Jason Heppler (instructor), University of Nebraska-Omaha • Jeffrey W.
    [Show full text]
  • Community Code: Supporting the Mission of Open Access and Preservation with the Use of Open Source Library Technologies Keila Zayas-Ruiz and Mark Baggett
    )ORULGD6WDWH8QLYHUVLW\/LEUDULHV 2018 Community Code: Supporting the Mission of Open Access and Preservation with the Use of Open Source Library Technologies Keila Zayas-Ruiz and Mark Baggett This book chapter was published in Applying Library Values to Emerging Technology: Decision-Making in the Age of Open Access, Maker Spaces, and the Ever-Changing Library (Publications in Librarianship #72) by the Association of College & Research Libraries. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Follow this and additional works at DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] CHAPTER 12 Community Code: Supporting the Mission of Open Access and Preservation with the Use of Open Source Library Technologies Keila Zayas-Ruiz* Sunshine State Digital Network Coordinator Strozier Library, Florida State University Mark Baggett Department Head, Digital Initiatives Hodges Library, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Introduction As librarians, we serve as champions for equal access and preservation of materials, both scholarly and cultural in signiicance. One of the core missions of libraries is access. Due to increased demand for scholarly articles and the technological advances of the internet, open access is quickly becoming a major priority among research libraries today. It “has expanded the possibilities for disseminating one’s own research and accessing that of others.”1 he movement of open access aligns closely with the ALA core value of access as outlined by the ALA council: “All * This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
    [Show full text]