Creating and managing digital archives, catalogs, and collections is a growing concern as organizations seek to manage files and records, metadata-gather, and enable complex searches of their cultural production, ephemera, archives and/or born-digital assets.

This one-evening, two-part workshop goes in-depth on two popular and well-supported open-source digital archiving and collections management softwares that address these issues. We’ll look at Omeka, used primarily in academic and digital humanities projects; and CollectiveAccess, used primarily in GLAM [Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums] projects.

The first half of the workshop will orient you to who uses and how these softwares are implemented, what to expect and consider in a cataloging software project; and includes an overview of features,  metadata schemas, and problems to look out for.

The second half dives deeper into a hands-on comparison of these two programs, and participants will have an opportunity to build [and break!] from web interfaces and command-line access.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Hadassah Damien is a technologist, catalog software developer, and digital communications specialist at Openflows. As a community organizer who also implements technology to help activists succeed, and a multimedia artist who also builds digital archives, her work intersects functionality with agility, practicality, and the democratic politics of open-source cultures. She has collaborated on digital collection sites for John Jay library, The Interference Archive,  and more. She holds an MA in American Studies, and a Certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy from the CUNY Graduate Center. www.femmetech.org

Openflows Community Technology Lab is a NYC-based worker cooperative committed to bringing collaborative and cutting edge open source software [FLOSS] solutions to non-profit organizations, NGOs, libraries, progressive community organizations, and more. Since 2003 we have specialized in planning, configuration, and customization of FLOSS for large and small organizations worldwide. www.openflows.com

PREREQUISITES:

Bring your own laptop (Please notify Erica at [email protected] if you need a computer)

The first half of the workshop is geared to participants of all technical backgrounds.

The second half is geared to those comfortable with some web-building. If you are ok using WordPress, you’ll be ok at this section. Please bring a computer or be comfortable using a station at Eyebeam, as we will be learning by using. If you bring your own machine, ensure you have a command-line tool, an HTML editor [try TextWrangler if you don’t have one], and a few images to load into the systems to test it out.

SCHEDULE:

Part 1 – 6:30PM-8:00PM – Theory, digital catalog/archive project overview

Part 2 – 8:30-10:00PM – Hands-on learning, technical interfacing, back-end