Hello! Within this post I will analyze two different university’s Omeka sites by looking at the metadata available, what information was presented, and the ease of use of the sites. The two Omeka sites I looked at were Tufts University Library Omeka Site and Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries and University Museums Omeka Site. I found both sites by Googling “Proudly Powered by Omeka” and site:edu, both sites appeared on the first page of my search.
The Tufts University site focuses on the history of Ann Radcliffe’s book “The Mysteries of Udolpho” and the Johns Hopkins site explores the life and career of Rosa Ponselle.
Tufts University Landing Page:
Johns Hopkins University Landing Page:
Beginning on the landing pages of both sites you can see how the layout is different for each. The Tufts site is the default appearance with simple blue lettering and a white background. This is the same look of the Omeka site that Dr. Hadden uses, and the class added to last week. This default appearance conveys the message of the content without being distracting. The Johns Hopkins site was edited so there was a customized font and different colors on the page. The overall layout of the sites is also different, while both feature tabs on the top of the page they look different and do different things. Neither of these displays are distracting and do not take away from the information being provided.
Intended Audiences and Reasons for the Projects:
The messaging and intended audience for each of these projects was very different, with the Tufts site being more similar to the one that our class added to, being that it was an assignment for a history course. The image above shows how, at the bottom of each page within this project, it was noted that this site was created by the Tisch Library and students in History 96: History of the Book. The intended audience for this project are the other people in the class and the professor of the course, while the Johns Hopkins university site was meant to promote an in-person exhibit.
This Omeka project was promoted on the Johns Hopkins University official website and had links to other resources associated with the exhibit such as dates and times of the exhibit opening and a concert paying tribute to Rosa Ponselle’s career. As this was all promotional material for the exhibit, the intended audience is the community of Johns Hopkins university who might be interested in Rosa Ponselle’s life and career and come to visit the exhibit.
Navigating the sites:
Both sites work by leading you to the next page with arrows at the bottom of the pages, this helps easily navigate the sites and logically follow the narrative. The Johns Hopkins site only has information on Rosa Ponselle, so all the links and pages are related to her life, career, and the exhibit about her at the Peabody center. On the Tufts site, while easy to navigate the initial pages about Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, there are many other projects within the Omeka site so once you leave the Ann Radcliffe project it is difficult to find your way back. There are also many dead links that will result in an error message or just take you back to the landing page. Due to this, navigating the initial project is simple but once you leave that area the site becomes more complicated to navigate. The other projects on the Omeka site are not all related and have a variety of topics and classes they cover. Many of the sites are in French which can make finding the way back from those pages extra challenging. Below are just a few examples of the variety of projects available on the Tufts site.
Dublin Core and Metadata:
Both projects use Dublin Core as they are humanities projects powered by Omeka, but the information available for each project is slightly different.
The Tufts University project have easy places to find all the Dublin Core information and metadata used for the resources. Again, this is similar to the site that our own class contributed to in which we could all view each other’s individual Dublin Core items.
The Johns Hopkins University site was not as accessible with Dublin Core and metadata information. While the Dublin Core information is available it is not always accessible and there are times when looking for data and only limited information will appear. Metadata is also not always available on the Johns Hopkins site, but it is consistently available on the Tufts site. On the Tufts site there is a way to quickly scroll though all of the items and navigate through their data easily, but this was not available on the Johns Hopkins site.
For both Dublin Core items and metadata information the standard information was available on both sites. As previously mentioned there are some items on the Johns Hopkins site where this information is missing but there is still space for it within the data information. This leads me to believe that both the Tufts and John Hopkins sites are both using the same plug ins as our class did on Dr. Hadden’s Omeka site.
Leave a Reply