News From The Omeka Project

Last year right around this time, the good folks at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media announced a beta release of Omeka S, a multi-site version of their popular scholarly content management system. Omeka, to quote from the homepage for the project, “provides open-source web publishing platforms for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits.”

This week, in a news release titled, “Major Milestones for Omeka,” Sheila Brennan shares the following welcome information:

Today, the Omeka team is releasing the first major point release for Omeka S: 1.0. It is available for download today. We are also revealing a redesigned, Omeka.org, which represents a major undertaking of effort that has happened at the edges of all other pressing design, development, and outreach work.

Omeka S 1.0

One year following the Beta, the release of Omeka S 1.0 demonstrates the stability of the platform.

Created with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Omeka S is engineered to ease the burdens of administrators who want to make it possible for their users easily build their own sites that showcase digital cultural heritage materials and share those resources as linked open data.

If you’re unfamiliar with Omeka S, take a quick tour. Play in the Sandbox to test out the S platform before installing: Get a login, then explore the Sandbox.

Omeka.org

As Omeka grows, it is more important than ever to showcase all of Omeka’s platforms, and to make it easier for different users to find what they need more quickly.

It is easier to distinguish among the Omeka Classic, Omeka S, and Omeka.net platforms, as well as other projects such as Omeka Everywhere.

In addition to showcasing a refreshed look and feel, Omeka.org also boasts of some new important features:

• New directories for themes and plugins for Omeka Classic and themes and modules for Omeka S; plus a streamlined process for registering any addon;
• Updated user manuals and developer documentation for Classic and S;
• History of the Omeka project.

In sum, those who are interested in creating online scholarly resources with Omeka may now select from the following:

• Omeka S: “For institutions managing a sharable resource pool across multiple sites.”

• Omeka Classic: “For individual projects and educators.”

• Omeka.net: “A hosted service option for publishing digital collections and exhibits, allowing users to run Omeka Classic without worrying about installation or hosting.”/

• Omeka Everywhere: “A suite of tools enabling institutions to connect an Omeka Classic instance to multitouch tablets and mobile devices.”

Are you an Omeka user? Share any advice or feedback you may have in the comments below.