Islandora and Omeka:Building U of T Digital Collections & Exhibits

Kelli Babcock, Digital Initiatives Librarian - kelli.babcock@utoronto.caLeslie Barnes, Digital Scholarship Librarian - leslie.barnes@utoronto.ca

Presentation Overview1. Overview of digital projects support in ITS - http://its.library.utoronto.ca/

2. Introduction to Islandora

3. Introduction to Omeka

4. Fisher Collections UofT and Omeka

5. Discussion

Introduction to IslandoraWhy would I use Islandora?

I need to…

● preserve a digital collection (images, data, audio, video) in an institutional repository

● create a digital collection with permanent identifiers● create a digital collections to be harvested through

OAI-PMH

What is Islandora?A sandwich

Top layer: Drupal (display)

Middle bits: Islandora (tools)

Bottom layer: Fedora (repository)

http://islandora.ca/islandora-installations

Islandora at UofT: collections.library.utoronto.ca

http://collections.library.utoronto.ca/

Purpose

● search across UofT collections through the Collections UofT portal (de-silo)

● UofT content collaborators take an active role in creating digital collections using a user-friendly and customizable front end

● preserves digital content according to best practices defined by the digital curation community (Fedora Commons object derivatives automatically generated upon ingest)

● controls access permissions to digital collections● supports the dissemination of UofT digital collections through

Open Archives Initiative Protocol Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)

● allows for the analytics of UofT digital collections use● one-stop tool for digital collection creation!

Islandora - Workflow

Introduction to OmekaWhy would I use Omeka?

I need to…

● create online exhibits that integrate text and images, video, or audio

● little to no need to rely on developers: Omeka has an easy-to-use, intuitive interface

Or: tell us how you might use Omeka?

Why Omeka? Exhibit Builder!

Omeka is a Content Management System (CMS): it can store, collect, and present collections of digital objects

Islandora does all of this too and is a more robust preservation platform…

Omeka’s Exhibit Builder plugin makes it incredibly easy to make context rich, digital exhibits that integrate images, video, audio, and text

Collections UofT and Omeka at the Thomas Fisher Library

Liz Ridolfo, Digital Projects Librarian - liz.ridolfo@utoronto.caJohn Shoesmith, Outreach Librarian - john.shoesmith@utoronto.ca

How is the Fisher library using Collections UofT and Omeka?

● Our needs for Collections and Omeka:○ to preserve digital objects with

metadata○ to showcase multimedia materials○ to encourage engagement with our

resources○ to supplement physical exhibitions

Collections UofT● Digital preservation

● sharing and linking Fisher material with the UofT community

● new use for already digitized material (internet archive and manuscripts)

● allow students to gather material into mini-exhibitions

Collections - Metadata

Creating Virtual Exhibitions● Currently: Virtual exhibitions created by ITS

● Exhibitions well designed, however, ○ time consuming for ITS to create○ not maintained or supported○ have to be migrated

● What if we could take it out of the hands of ITS? Hello Omeka!

Museum studies studentsThis is an example of a student-created Omeka site that used Fisher materials. In this case:

● students selected the items from a MS collection chosen by staff

● staff digitized the items

● supplemented with student photography

● students created metadata

● students researched the collection and wrote the text, arranged the items and decided on the design

Collections and OmekaHere, an item is added to Omeka with the Fedora connector by using its Collections PID.

It is added to a collection to later be used in an exhibit.

Using available themes in Omeka This basic example was created using the existing page layouts and themes in Omeka.

● It replicates the content of the Vesalius catalogue/exhibit

● Clicking the item displays metadata and clicking for the full size image links back to the item in collections UofT

Modifying available themes in Omeka● With minor modifications,

Omeka themes can be styled to look more like the physical exhibition or asset that they represent, or to be more interactive

● Plugins allow the potential to use interactive tools like maps, slideshows and timelines

Contact Us!

● Kelli Babcock, Digital Initiatives Librarian - kelli.babcock@utoronto.ca

● Leslie Barnes, Digital Scholarship Librarian - leslie.barnes@utoronto.ca

● Liz Ridolfo, Digital Projects Librarian - liz.ridolfo@utoronto.ca

● John Shoesmith, Outreach Librarian - john.shoesmith@utoronto.ca