Creating Narrative with Digital Objects

Constructing Narrative
Using Digital Objects
Putting Omeka to Work
Shawn Day
Newcastle University
31October 2014

Objectives
‣ A brief introduction to Metadata, it’s value and how it can be
leveraged in Omeka as a digital narrative tool;
‣ To evaluate what digital narrative tools - such as Omeka or
others - may be of use in sharing your research – and telling
your story.
‣ Why  How

But First … A Little Context
Who is Getrude Bell?

Telling a Story Online
Examples

Omeka in Action
‣ Example 2

Who works with Metadata today?

"If a resource does not have any associated metadata
information, then it is essentially lost."

"If a resource has erroneous, inconsistent, or not enough
metadata information, then it is essentially non-existent."

Why and How? - Basic Metadata
‣ What is this resource?
‣ Who created the resource?
‣ When was this resource created or published?
‣ Why was this resource created?
‣ Who owns or how do you purchase the resource?
‣ Can you re-use and/or share this resource? (Licensing)

Types of Metadata
‣ Descriptive metadata —> Identification;
‣ Structural metadata —> Referential;
‣ Administrative metadata —> Manage;
‣ Technical metadata —> Production Process;
‣ Preservation metadata —> Preservation Processes;
‣ Rights metadata —> Access and Use.
‣ Some or all

A Universe of Standards
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/seeingstandards.pdf

A Few Common Standards
‣ Dublin Core (ISO15836)
‣ Resource discovery across domains
‣ General and Abstracted
‣ GIS Metadata (ISO19115) —> OGC GML
‣ VRA Core - Visual Materials
‣ MODS (METS) —> MARC
‣ MPEG21 - Multimedia Resources

Why Metadata?
1. Facilitate Discovery of Content;
2. Help Organise Content;
3. Facilitate Harvesting of Content;
4. Support Archiving and Preservation.

A Rather Quick Introduction
to Dublin Core
Just Enough to be Dangerous

TITLE
‣ Title
‣ <dc:title></dc:title>
‣ What the formal name of this resource - how would a user know it?
‣ Examples: title of a painting, photo, document; the name of a
person when using the "person" item type; the name of a lesson
plan.
‣ <dc:title>Arab Gentleman</dc:title>

SUBJECT
‣ Subject
‣ <dc:subject></dc:subject>
‣ What is the domain area/topic (non-spatial or temporal) that the
object is part of?
‣ Controlled vocabularies such as the Getty can help here.
‣ Typically keywords, key phrases, or classification codes.
‣ Examples: Library of Congress subject headings; subject-specific
nomenclature.
‣ <dc:subject>Bell, Gertrude Lowthian 1868-1926 — Journeys —
Pictorial works.</dc:subject>

DESCRIPTION
‣ Description
‣ <dc:description></dc:description>
‣ What sort of short narrative will help a user to know whether this
resource is relevant to their needs?
‣ This is often an abstract, a table of contents or even a graphical
representation of the object
‣ Examples: a photo caption; descriptive information of an
artifact/museum object; summary of a lesson plan; abstract or
summary of a long document.
‣ <dc:description>[Arab gentleman - possibly Am’a Abdullah
Pasha]</dc:description>

CREATOR
‣ Creator
‣ <dc:creator></dc:creator>
‣ Who is responsible for making this digital resource - digtiser, digital
author?
‣ The original author or the digitising institution?
‣ Examples: Author/authors; artists; photographers; institutional
authors or producers, such as university or federal agency.
‣ <dc:creator>Gertrude Bell</dc:creator>

SOURCE
‣ Source
‣ <dc:source></dc:source>
‣ From what resource did the derived digital resource come from?
‣ This can be a type, a descriptor but best practice recommends a
string conforming to a formal identifier system
‣ Examples: Accession number; Collection of objects; Division of an
archive or library.
‣ <dc:source>Gertrude Bell Papers, Special Collections, Newcastle
University</dc:source>

PUBLISHER
‣ Publisher
‣ <dc:publisher></dc:publisher>
‣ Who (what institution is making this resource available?
‣ If there is a license or copyright involved helps to determine this one
‣ Examples: actual publisher, if there is one; entity or consortium
publishing digital materials.
‣ <dc:publisher>University Library, Newcastle
University</dc:publisher>

DATE
‣ Date
‣ <dc:date></dc:date>
‣ A point or period in the lifecycle of the digital object
‣ When was this scanned? When was it published?
‣ Consistency - decided by project management - documented
‣ Consider in relation to the coverage of the object
‣ Date is one of the trickiest fields to fill. You will want to decide how best to use
it for your project for consistency. There is an open text field for date so that
you can reflect the type of date information you have whether it is a very
specific date MM/DD/YYYY or if it is "circa 1940".
‣ <dc:date>1905-03</dc:date>

CONTRIBUTOR
‣ Contributor
‣ <dc:contributor></dc:contributor>
‣ Who (individual, institution, organisation - entity) is making this
object available/responsible for its digitisation?
‣ Examples: person who contributed a story or file for an Omeka
collecting project; owner or donor of collected objects.
‣ <dc:contributor>Special Collections, Newcastle
University</dc:contributor>

RIGHTS
‣ Rights
‣ <dc:rights></dc:rights>
‣ What restrictions are held in and over this resource?
‣ This is typically a statement relation to the intellectual and usage
rights relating to this digital object
‣ Examples: spell out conditions of use for specific items here;
Creative Commons type; Public Domain.
‣ <dc:rights>Reproduction of these materials in any format for any purpose other than
personal research and study may constitute a violation of CDPA 1988 and
infringement of rights associated with the materials. Please contact us for
permissions information at lib-specenq@ncl.ac.uk</dc:rights>

RELATION
‣ Relation
‣ <dc:relation></dc:relation>
‣ What resources are related to this digitised object?
‣ Best practice is to refer to a <dc:identifier>
‣ Examples: a still image of a person entered as a "person" type.
‣ <dc:relation>Gertrude Bell Collection</dc:relation>

FORMAT
‣ Format
‣ <dc:format></dc:format>
‣ What is the file format of this digital resource?
‣ Examples include size and duration. Recommended best practice is
to use a controlled vocabulary such as the Internet Media Types
(MIME).
‣ <dc:format>JPG</dc:format>

LANGUAGE
‣ Language
‣ <dc:language></dc:language>
‣ What is the language(s) of the digital resource?
‣ Again best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as
RFC4646
‣ Examples: English; Russian; Spanish, et al.

TYPE
‣ Type
‣ <dc:type></dc:type>
‣ What defined type best represents the object you are referencing?
‣ Best practice to use the DCMI Type controlled vocabulary
‣ http://dublincore.org/documents/2010/10/11/dcmi-type-vocabulary/
‣ Examples: For consistency, use item type controlled vocabulary provided
by Omeka: Document, Moving Image, Oral History, Sound, Still Image,
Website, Event, Email, Lesson Plan, Hyperlink, Person, or Interactive
Resource.
‣ <
‣ dc:type>Still Image</dc:type>

IDENTIFIER
‣ Identifier
‣ <dc:identifier></dc:identifier>
‣ Where will a user find this resource via the web?
‣ A direct and unambiguous identification of the resource - unique
and persistent - handle?
‣ <dc:identifier>658/2</dc:identifier>

COVERAGE
‣ Coverage
‣ <dc:coverage></dc:coverage>
‣ To what defining place or time is this item relevant (spatial or
temporal)?
‣ Typically relies on a controlled vocabulary relevant to the domain,
ie. The Getty Museum / Research Institute
‣ Where appropriate, named places or time periods can be used in
preference to numeric identifiers such as sets of coordinates or date
ranges.
‣ <dc:coverage>Damascus - Syria</dc:coverage>

An Arab Gentleman – and a Digital Object
‣ <?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE rdf:RDF PUBLIC "-//DUBLIN CORE//DCMES DTD 2002/07/31//EN"
‣ "http://dublincore.org/documents/2002/07/31/dcmes-xml/dcmes-xml-dtd.dtd">
‣ <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
‣ xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
‣ <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://nclomeka1.omeka.net/admin/items/show/18">
‣ <dc:title>Arab gentleman</dc:title>
‣ <dc:subject>Bell, Gertrude Lowthian 1868-1926 — Journeys — Pictorial works.</dc:subject>
‣ <dc:description>[Arab gentleman - possibly Am'a Abdullah Pasha]</dc:description>
‣ <dc:creator>Gertrude Bell</dc:creator>
‣ <dc:source>Gertrude Bell Papers, Special Collections, Newcastle University</dc:source>
‣ <dc:publisher>University Library, Newcastle University</dc:publisher>
‣ <dc:date>1905-03</dc:date>
‣ <dc:contributor>Special Collections, Newcastle University</dc:contributor>
‣ <dc:rights>Reproduction of these materials in any format for any purpose other than
personal research and study may constitute a violation of CDPA 1988 and infringement of
rights associated with the materials. Please contact us for permissions information at
lib-specenq@ncl.ac.uk</dc:rights>
‣ <dc:relation>Gertrude Bell Collection</dc:relation>
‣ <dc:format>JPG</dc:format>
‣ <dc:language>EN</dc:language>
‣ <dc:type>Still Image</dc:type>
‣ <dc:identifier>658/2</dc:identifier>
‣ <dc:coverage>Damascus - Syria</dc:coverage>
‣ </rdf:Description></rdf:RDF>

Keepinging the User in Mind
‣ How will people find what they are looking for?
‣ How will they differentiate from one 'thing' over another?
‣ How will your information architecture refer to the digital
objects?
‣ Useful for Straight Dublin Core: Dublin Core Generator

Lessons
‣ The world is fluid and formats and standards change
‣ How can I choose the right one?
‣ Be consistent and you can transform and evolve - Crosswalks
‣ How can I make the right decisions?
‣ I am a big fan of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
‣ They have some very useful tools: http://dcc.ac.uk

Exercise One
Getting Intimate with Digital Objects

Seeing Metadata in Action
‣ You’ve been given an image and record ID
1. Browse to http://cdm15979.contentdm.oclc.org
2. Login:
3. Locate the ‘Newcastle MA training event 201410’
4. Find your record using the filename of the image file
5. Explore the context of the image within the collection -
browse
6. Copy the Dublin Core information – digitally preferred
7. (NotePad)

Introducing Omeka
Collecting and Managing Digital Objects

Who’s Behind Omeka?: CNMH
‣ Roy Rosenzweig Centre for New Media and History
‣ Founded 1994
‣ George Mason University in Washington
‣ Collaborative Space Supporting 50+ Scholars
‣ To preserve and present history online
‣ Transform scholarship across the humanities
‣ Supported by grants from AHA, NEH, NHC, Library of
Congress, Mellon, Sloan, Rockefeller and Kellog Foundations
amongst others

Products
Zotero
Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is
a free, easy-to-use
Firefox extension to
help you collect,
manage, and cite your
research sources.
Omeka
Designed for cultural
institutions, enthusiasts,
and educators, Omeka is a
platform for publishing
online collections and
exhibitions.
Omeka.net
Let Omeka.net host your
collections, research,
exhibits, and digital
projects.
THATCamp
Short for “The Humanities
and Technology Camp,"
THATCamp is a
BarCamp-style, user-generated
“unconference” on
digital humanities.
Scripto
Scripto is a free, open
source tool that enables
community transcriptions
of document and
multimedia files.
PressForward
PressForward is
pioneering new
methods to capture
and highlight
orphaned or
underappreciated
scholarship and
share it with digital
humanists across the
web.
ScholarPress
Manage your class,
publish research, or
collaborate on a
conference
presentation with this
hub for scholarly &
educational plugins.
Anthologize
Anthologize is a free, open-source,
plugin that
transforms WordPress into
a platform for publishing
electronic texts.
Survey Builder
Build online surveys that
are especially
applicable to oral
histories.
Timeline Builder
CHNM Labs: Easily create
and manage a timeline
of historical events for
your website.
Serendip-o-matic
Serendip-o-matic connects
your sources to digital
materials located in
libraries, museums, and
archives around the world.
Web Scrapbook
Store all kinds of media
items — URLs,
images, text, and
movies — &
collaborate thru the
CHNM online
scrapbook.

What is Omeka?
‣ Omeka was developed at Center for History and New Media
(CHNM) at George Mason University as a "next generation
web publishing platform for museums, historical societies,
scholars, enthusiasts, and educators." The feature-rich offering
provides for the presentation, searching and browsing of digital
collections along with a robust metadata management facility.

OMEKA Core Features
‣ Based on Open Source
Technology: Linux, Apache,
MySQL, PHP;
‣ Free to Use, Free to
Change;
‣ Easy to Use;
‣ Change Design using
Themes;
‣ Add Functionality with Plug-
Ins;
‣ Unqualified Dublin Core
Metadata;
‣ Strong Support Community;
‣ Extensible, Scalable,
Flexible;
‣ Interoperable

What is 'an Omeka'
‣ An Omeka 'instance' contains:
‣ Items (digital Objects of various types)
‣ Collections (of objects)
‣ Sites (set of collections)
‣ Exhibits (curated subsets of site
collections)

Exercise Two:
Adding Digital Objects to a Collection

Workshop Logistics
1. Your have chosen your own username and password
2. Please access your User Account on
http://nclomeka1.omeka.net/admin
‣ You are all SuperAdmins – really super!
‣ Our first objective is to Add an Item to the Collection
‣ Follow Along in Your Own Browser

The Dashboard
‣ The Dashboard is where it all happens

Item List
‣ All of the digital objects

Specify Item Type
‣ You can select from the default ypes supported by Omeka.
‣ These can correspond to the dc:type but not tied directly

Supported Item Types
‣ Document
‣ Still Image
‣ Moving Image
‣ Sound
‣ Oral History
‣ Email
‣ Lesson Plan
‣ Website
‣ HyperLink
‣ Event (Time-Based
Occurrence)
‣ Person (Biographic)
‣ Interactive Resource

Add a File to the Item
‣ You can have one or multiple files;
‣ Depends on type of item.

Add an Item – Optional but Fun

Add Tags to the Item
‣ Why Tags with all the DC metadata?

Adding an Item and its MetaData
‣ Return to the Item List
‣ Choose Add Item
‣ Take your Metadata record and populate the item record
‣ Dublin Core more info: http://dublincore.org
‣ 15 Metadata Elements of a generic and wide-ranging number of
digital resources;
‣ Each Dublin Core element is optional and may be repeated

Where We are At : Item Added
‣ Enter data to the best of your ability for the Dublin Core info -
bearing in mind not all fields are mandatory;
‣ Title, Description and Subject important.
‣ Title:
‣ Description:
‣ Subject:

Spend time thinking about your metadata in
advance
‣ It’s really about best practice
which means although you can
touch and feel an object, you
must define it properly first

Let’s Take a Look at What We Have

The Steps in Adding an Item
1. Go to the DashBoard
2. View Existing Items
3. Choose Add Item
4. Take the Metadata You Have along with the Image File and
create an Item and locate it geospatially.
5. Choose a Collection to which it belongs
6. Save and you are Done.
7. There is an alternative.

Building a Narrative Exhibit
Leveraging Exhibit to Tell A Good Story

Create an Exhibit
‣ What is an Exhibit?
A carefully composed and curated digital showcase that
organizes the images, texts, video, audio, and other uploaded
items on your Omeka site into a coherent narrative for people
to browse.
- Harriet Green, Librarian, University of Illinois Scholarly Commons

Create an Exhibit
‣ Exhibits consist of Sections and Pages and Groups of
Collections and Items
‣ The first step is to take the time to plan your exhibit to consider
basic user interaction.

Create an Exhibit
‣ Time spent at this stage is
essential - define the display
architecture

A Collaborative Narrative Platform

Considerations
‣ Browse versus Search
‣ Guided versus Serendipitous
‣ Navigation
‣ Story Arc
‣ The Glue
‣ Varying Levels of Engagement

A Simple Metaphor
‣ Museum
‣ Wings
‣ Rooms
‣ Tours
‣ Objects

A Simple Metaphor
‣ Omeka
‣ Collections
‣ Exhibits
‣ Pages
‣ Items

Planning an Omeka Site
1 What is the Primary Goal for the Site?
2 Who is the Primary Audience for the Site?
1 Who Else Might Use the site? - Secondary audiences?
3 What sections will this Site or Exhibit Include?
1 Items: (renamed however you would like Archive/Sources/Objects) links to a
browseable list of items, sortable by type of item and tags.
2 Collections (renamed however you would like): groups of items, public can dig
through collection to find items.
3 Exhibits: (renamed however you would like) Exhibits contain interpretative text and
rely on items/sources/objects as their building blocks.
4 About-- a simple page good for publishing project descriptions, credits, rights, et al
4 Keyword Search box – option to link to advanced search page

Create an Exhibit
‣ Make sure that the Exhibit Plug-In in installed and Enabled

Create an Exhibit
‣ Add an Exhibit

You can Add Static Page
‣ Use the Simple Page Plug-In to Add A Static Page

Group Exercise : Build An Exhibit

Possible Sources
‣ http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk
‣ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell
‣ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lettersfrombaghdad/letters
-from-baghdad-a-film-about-gertrude-bell
‣ http://lettersfrombaghdadthemovie.com
‣ http://cdm15979.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p15
979coll24

Thinking About Items in Your Site
1. The item is the building block of your site.
1. Add the objects and materials you want to display in your site.
2. Add descriptions using some or all of the standard Dublin Core fields.
3. Once you have items in the Omeka archive, then you can build an exhibit with them or
display categories of items organized by collections or tags.
2. Determine the types of items/sources/objects you plan to use in this site:
(ie, Document, Still Image, Moving Image, Audio, et al),
3. Do you want to modify any of the item type fields or types?
See Item_Types for additional types and explanations.
4. Do you need additional core fields? —> Install the Dublin Core Extended plugin.
5. It is wise to determine before you start building the item archive what type of consistencies
you desire in your metadata--this may be especially true for fields such as date, publisher,
creator, et al.

What About All those Lovely Plugins?

To Control Data Entry
‣ Establish your own
Controlled Vocabulary for
specific metadata fields?
‣ Make it easier for your team
to enter consistent data?
‣ Install SimpleVocab

Use Library of Congress Subjects
• Do you want to easily use
Library of Congress subject
headings?
• Do you want to make it
easier for entry and ensure
consistency?
• > Library of Congress
Suggest

Do You Want to Establish Your Own
Taxonomy?
• Do you want to establish a controlled tagging schema?
• You may add tags to individual items and exhibits;
• Before building your archive you may want to devise this
schema to help control vocab and spelling;
• Tags can help you pull together different items for the purpose
of arranging them on a map or creating navigational links to
browse items with a specific tag;
• This is a standard feature for Omeka Items.

Do You Have Objects in other Repositories?
• You may be able to batch add
them into your Omeka site.
Can items be exported in a
Comma Separated Value
format?
Is there an OAI-PMH
harvestable set?
• Do you have hundreds of files,
or large media files?
• Are you using Fedora?

Do Your Objects Have Locations?
• Activate the Geolocation Plugin.
• You must geolocate each item
individually.
• A Great way to browse a
collection.

Do You Want to Crowdsource Your Content?
• Collaborate with MyOmeka
• Create Custom Tags and
Annotations
• Collect these to Author Posters
• Contribution Plugin
• a way to collect stories,
images, or other files from the
public and manage those
contributions in your Omeka
archive as items.

Do You Want to Make Your Site Social?
• Add social bookmarking icons to
the bottom of items;
• Allow users to share links to that
item w/their social networks.
• Allow the public to ‘comment’
using the Omeka Comment
Plug-In

Do You Want to Extend a Physical Exhibit?
• The Reports And Codes Plugin
exports a list of items
selected/browsed/matching
criteria and generates PDFs of
QR Codes.
• Use Mobile Devices to Browse
Omeka Collectionss for more
information

Do You Want to Have Users Read Supporting
Documents Online?
• Use the DocsViewer Plugin
• Embeds a Google document
viewer into item show pages.
PDF documents, PowerPoint
presentations, TIFF files, and
some Microsoft Word
documents are supported.

Do You Want to Transcribe Items?
• Crowdsource the transcription of
Omeka Items.
• Uses MediaWiki, and Scripto
allowing items with files to be
transcribed.
Transcriptions are then captured
into Omeka.

Extending Omeka Even Further
‣ Do you want to allow users to be notified of changes to your
items, collections, or exhibits?
‣ —> Atom Output (Atom Syndication Format)
‣ Do you want users to be able to harvest objects to their own
bibliographic managers (such as Zotero)?
‣ —> COinS metadata
‣ Do you want to track user demographics?
‣ —> Google Analytics
‣ Do you want to generate derivative images?
‣ —> Derivatives plug-in

Do You need Help?
http://info.omeka.net

Omeka in a Nutshell
Pros
‣ Simple
‣ Lightweight
‣ Standards-Based
‣ Extensible
‣ Embeddable in other
systems
Cons
‣ Scalability
‣ Restrictions on Look and
Feel
‣ Extensive customisation
means getting into code
‣ A few lingering mobile
usage issues

Comparing omeka.net and omeka.org
Features omeka.org omeka.net
Server LAMP server required no server required
FTP client Required for file uploads and modifying Omeka not required
Web-based administrative interface Yes Yes
Storage Space Determined by your server admin
Determined by your plan: 500 mb; 1 gb; 5 gb; 10 gb; or
25gb
File size limitations
Determined by your server admin, with ability to use
Dropbox plugin for files that exceed that limit.
32 mb maximum
Sites per Installation One website for one Omeka installation
Depending on plan, multiple sites available managed by
one user.
Custom Domain Redirects
You may point any Omeka installation to any domain
name.
No redirects available. All sites are subdomains of
Omeka.net (yoursite.omeka.net)
Plugins and Themes
Any and all available in Add-ons directory (see more on
other pages)
Not all Omeka plugins are available for use on .Net. And
availability of those plugins depends on the plan chosen
(see more on other pages).
Pricing
Free: all versions of Omeka, and all of its plugins and
themes are free and will be always.
Free basic plan will always be available, with other options
available for small fee: http://www.omeka.net/signup
Support User Forums: http://omeka.org/forums
Help section with detailed instructions:
http://info.omeka.net
Developers' Google Group:
https://groups.google.com/group/omeka-dev/
Troubleshooting help form: http://info.omeka.net/contact
Advanced development: GitHub: http://github.org/omeka

Digital Narrative Alternatives

Alternatives
‣ WordPress
‣ Drupal
‣ Exhibit?
‣ ContentDM
‣ Duraspace (DSpace and Fedora)
‣ MapStory ESRI
‣ StoryMapJS
‣ NeatLine ....
‣ Noting that Omeka and these all can co-exist

Thank You
Shawn Day - s.day@qub.co.uk - @iridium
The Library/Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities
18 University Square - Ground Floor
http://qubdh.co.uk

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