Open Forum

We are looking to build a virtual museum of scales, weights and measures. After researching several alternatives, our leading choice of a platform is the Omeka software, which is used by several museums, large and small. Specific questions:

1. What cautions or down sides are there to using their hosting on Omeka.net rather than hosting it on our own?
2. When setting up the site, what are those "I wish we would have..." early steps that make things go easier?
3. What photo size do you recommend? (Our current experiments suggest 500 KB to 1 MB)
4. Other recommendations?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Greg Moss
Museum Planning Committee
International Society of Antique Scale Collectors (www.isasc.org)
Pittsburgh, PA
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Original Message------

We are looking to build a virtual museum of scales, weights and measures. After researching several alternatives, our leading choice of a platform is the Omeka software, which is used by several museums, large and small. Specific questions:

1. What cautions or down sides are there to using their hosting on Omeka.net rather than hosting it on our own?
2. When setting up the site, what are those "I wish we would have..." early steps that make things go easier?
3. What photo size do you recommend? (Our current experiments suggest 500 KB to 1 MB)
4. Other recommendations?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Greg Moss
Museum Planning Committee
International Society of Antique Scale Collectors (www.isasc.org)
Pittsburgh, PA
------------------------------

​Omeka is a great platform for lightweight exhibits, allowing you to gather items recorded in the Dublin Core standard into collections, and build them into on-line exhibition for there.  As with most software, the difficulty lies in mastering the details, which, in this case, include many plug-ins and can be learned with practice.  I have found the Omeka Forum is a great place to ask questions, and there is always someone to share some knowledge and experience of the sticking places.  It is a great tool, when used with patience, and yields attractive, shareable presentations.  Just do not expect it to come all at once.

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Colin Windhorst, PhD
Digital Curation
University of Maine
Orono, Maine, USA
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2018 09:59 AM
From: Kristan McKinsey
Subject: Use of Omeka software

I'm starting to build our new website on Omeka, so am interested in advice as well.  Thank you.

Kristan

Kristan H. McKinsey, Director
Illinois Women Artists Project
an initiative of Bradley University
Heuser Art Center, Room 313
1501 W. Bradley Ave.
Peoria, IL  61625
309-677-2860

Original Message------

We are looking to build a virtual museum of scales, weights and measures. After researching several alternatives, our leading choice of a platform is the Omeka software, which is used by several museums, large and small. Specific questions:

1. What cautions or down sides are there to using their hosting on Omeka.net rather than hosting it on our own?
2. When setting up the site, what are those "I wish we would have..." early steps that make things go easier?
3. What photo size do you recommend? (Our current experiments suggest 500 KB to 1 MB)
4. Other recommendations?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Greg Moss
Museum Planning Committee
International Society of Antique Scale Collectors (www.isasc.org)
Pittsburgh, PA
------------------------------

While Omeka.net is great for learning, you will want to move to Omeka.org, or Omeka Classic, for sustained work, as it is more robust, with more applications and maneuverability.   If you can see yourself moving to a larger institutional context, with more links to other materials and collections in your own record keeping system, Omeka S is the platform to choose.  The question of migrating records from Omeka Classic to Omeka S has been raised many times, and while it is possible, it is not easy, as I understand it.  You can find out more by asking on the Omeka Forum, a lively user community.

------------------------------
Colin Windhorst, PhD
Digital Curation
University of Maine
Orono, Maine, USA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2018 09:37 AM
From: Greg Moss
Subject: Use of Omeka software

We are looking to build a virtual museum of scales, weights and measures. After researching several alternatives, our leading choice of a platform is the Omeka software, which is used by several museums, large and small. Specific questions:

1. What cautions or down sides are there to using their hosting on Omeka.net rather than hosting it on our own?
2. When setting up the site, what are those "I wish we would have..." early steps that make things go easier?
3. What photo size do you recommend? (Our current experiments suggest 500 KB to 1 MB)
4. Other recommendations?

Thanks!

------------------------------
Greg Moss
Museum Planning Committee
International Society of Antique Scale Collectors (www.isasc.org)
Pittsburgh, PA
------------------------------