Praxis

Technical Aspects

Platform: Omeka Classic, open-source content management system and platform

Omeka Classic v. 2.7.1 installed and hosted on the BC Libraries server and domain.

Theme: Seasons - Night (customized)

Custom theme is documented in our Digital Scholarship @ Boston College Libraries GitHub Repository; HTML, CSS and php files in theme and root directories were modified to accommodate project needs.

Installed Plugins

CSS Editor: Allows for CSS customization within the Omeka platform

COinS: Adds COinS metadata to item pages, making them Zotero readable.

CSV Import: Imports items, tags, and files from CSV files.

Dublin Core Extended: Adds the full set of Dublin Core properties to the existing Dublin Core element set, including element refinements and supplemental elements.

Exhibit Builder: Allows for the building of rich exhibits using Omeka.

Helpers: This plugin uses various tools to help builders of plugins and themes (find or order records, etc.). In our case, it is used to order the items by Title within each exhibition and to ensure that it is not possible to move between exhibitions accidentally from the item view. 

MLA Citations: This plugin allows for the display MLA style citations in Omeka. We are using a customized version for our own citation style.

PDF Embed: Embeds PDF documents into item and file pages.

Shortcode Carousel: Adds a shortcode to insert a carousel item viewer into Simple Pages.

Simple Pages: Allows administrators to create simple web pages for their public site.

Universal Viewer: Integrates the IIIF specifications, a simple IIP Image Server and the Universal Viewer in order to create carousels of virtual books from image files and to display any media file (pdf, audio, video, 3D…) in a unified player.

Metadata

The following standards and vocabularies are used in this project:

Dublin Core (DC) metadata terms

DC metadata terms relevant to the content of this project were identified and a template was created for ingesting into Omeka using the CSV Import plugin.

The following Dublin Core metadata terms are in use:

  • Title
  • Subject
  • Description
  • Creator
  • Date
  • Type
  • Identifier
  • Rights Holder

The following specialized Item Type Metadata (Still Image) are in use:

  • Original Format
  • Physical Dimensions
  • Factual Commentary
  • Interpretive Commentary

The following Omeka functions are in use:

  • Collections = Database
  • Exhibitions

Each Collection has a 1:1 correspondence with an Exhibition in order to allow the user to move through the contained exhibition in order without accidentally moving to another exhibition (controlled through the Helpers plugin).