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Omeka: Building Digital Exhibitions

Tutorials for using Omeka to building digital exhibitions

Create a Collection

Collections are "buckets" that will store your items together in one place and allow you to find them quickly.

screenshot
  1. Click on "Collections" in the left hand menu.
  2. Click "Add a Collection"
  3. Give your collection a Title
  4. Optional: add additional metadata about your collection as needed

 

Add an Item from your computer

Items in menu

Step 1: Go to the Items screen

  1. Log into your Omeka site to go to your Dashboard
  2. Select "Items" from the left-hand menu
  3. Click the green "Add an Item" button above the list of items

 
Add Item screen

Step 2: Add Item metadata

  1. Look at the navigation bar under the page title "Add an Item" to make sure you are in the "Dublin Core" section
  2. Fill in the necessary fields such as Title, Creator, Source, etc.
  3. Optional: Click the "Use HTML" box below a field to get a WYSIWYG editor box for adding hyperlinks or other HTML code

 
Add Files

Step 3: Upload your file

  1. Click on "Files" in the top navigation bar
  2. Click the "Browse" button to select and add a file from your computer.
  3. Optional: Click "Add another file" if your item is composed of more than one file (example: the front and back of a postcard, a video file with a text transcript)
  4. Click the "Public" box below the "Add Item" button on the right to make your item visible
  5. Select a collection from the drop-down menu on the right
  6. Click the green "Add Item" button

 

Add Videos from YouTube

YouTube logoYou can import videos directly from YouTube using "YouTube Import" in the left navigation bar.

Enter the URL for the YouTube video and assign it to your collection using the drop-down menu.

Metadata (Title, etc.) for the video will be pulled from YouTube but you should review and clean up the metadata after import. To do this, find the newly imported YouTube video by going to the "Items" screen using the left navigation bar.

Add Images from Flickr

Flickr logo   You can import images directly from Flickr using "Flickr Import" in the left navigation bar.

Enter the URL for a single image and assign it to your collection using the drop-down menu.

Metadata (Title, etc.) for the image will be pulled from Flickr but you should review and clean up the metadata after import. To do this, find the newly imported Flickr image by going to the "Items" screen using the left navigation bar.

Creative Commons:

By default, a Flickr search will retrieve items of "Any license." We recommend limiting your Flickr search to "All creative commons" to find only items that have a Creative Commons (CC) license.

All creative commons

You can also use the Creative Commons Search to find CC licensed images in Flickr and other sources.