These days, any scholar or organization with a collection of primary sources such as photographs, drawings, paintings, letters, diaries, ledgers, scores, songs, oral histories, or home movies is bound to have some of this material in digital form. Omeka is a simple, free system built by and for cultural heritage professionals that is used by archives, libraries, museums, and individual scholars and teachers all over the world to create searchable online databases and attractive online exhibits of such digital archival collections. In this introduction to Omeka, we’ll look at a few of the many examples of websites built with Omeka, define some key terms and concepts related to Omeka, go over the difference between the hosted version of Omeka and the open source server-side version of Omeka, and learn about the Dublin Core metadata standard for describing digital objects. Participants will also learn to use Omeka themselves through hands-on exercises, so please *bring a laptop* (NOT an iPad or other tablet) if you can (if not, you can follow along with someone else). Learn more about Omeka at omeka.org and omeka.net.

Note: I’ve taught this workshop many times at various THATCamps, and my lesson plan is online for you to use at amandafrench.net/2013/11/12/introduction-to-omeka-lesson-plan/. See also how Virginia Tech’s own Special Collections uses Omeka at omeka.lib.vt.edu/.