Invited Presentations

Use the links below to view descriptions of the presentation that will be offered during the morning session.

Omeka Two Ways: Uses of Omeka for Public Facing Projects and Digital Exhibition Pedagogy at the Bard Graduate Center

The Bard Graduate Center deploys a number of Omeka installations for different purposes, leveraging the platforms sneaky flexibility to create a wide array of use scenarios. Kimon Keramidas, Assistant Professor and Director of the Digital Media Lab, will show four different projects that use Omeka in very different ways: The Bard Graduate Center Craft, Art & Design Oral History Project, The BGC Object of the Month Archive, Media and Materiality, and student projects(1, 2) from BGC courses.

Representing Material Culture Online: Historic Clothing in Omeka

The Vassar College Costume Collection (VCCC), a research collection of authentic historic clothing from the mid-nineteenth century to today, has used Omeka to share the collection online since the spring of 2011, at http://vcomeka.com/vccc/.  Project manager Arden Kirkland will discuss how the VCCC attempts to share more of the attributes specific to complex three-dimensional objects like costume, including student-produced photos and video showing many details of interior construction that are not commonly seen in standard collection databases. The collection also displays objectVRs for several objects, allowing for user interaction with a rotating three-dimensional representation of the garment mounted on a mannequin. The database includes many different object types, including not only images and information about the objects, but also related documents, candid photographs, oral history interviews, and more. This presentation will also show how a new inter-institutional project based at the Five Colleges in MA, HistoricDress.org, is using Omeka to explore ways of sharing private researcher’s materials representing small collections across the country.

A Case Study: Library Digital Special Collections at the American Museum of Natural History

Digital Special Collections of the American Museum of Natural History Research Library provides access to digital images of photographs, art, memorabilia, and rare book illustrations in the AMNH Library collections. The database of vibrant imagesdigitized from a variety of photographic formats with rich item level records shows the history and breadth of more than a century of the Museum’s scientific work in cultural heritage and the natural sciences. Curated online exhibits and browsable collections that can link to finding aids balance access for both scholarly researchers and casual viewers. Stacy Schiff, Visual Resources Librarian, and Jen Cwiok, Digital Projects Manager, will review the development of this Omeka-based system including work plans, staffing, and changes over time.

The Future of Omeka Coming Soon: A Report from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

Kim Nguyen, Omeka Lead Designer, and Patrick Murray-John, Research Assistant Professor and Omeka Development Team Manager, will be discussing what’s coming up in Omeka 2.2, a new version that is coming out in a matter of weeks. Kim will talk about new things in themes and design, while Patrick will be discussing new functionality and upcoming plugins. They will discuss needs they are hearing from the community and how RRCHNM and the Omeka development team are addressing those concerns in future updates to the platform.

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