Gina Bastone researched, curated, and developed the content for this exhibit. It was originally developed on Omeka.net and its current home is in a Spotlight exhibit on the UT Libraries Exhibits site. The Scalar and CollectionBuilder-GH example exhibits were created by Allyssa Guzman to showcase various open-source options for creating digital collections. Any typos, errors, broken links, or bizarre formatting were introduced by Allyssa when she created the copies of the original exhibit.
The skills needed for each type of software described below are meant only as a basic guide. Everyone learns differently and so we're tried to avoid characterizing skills as easy or hard. All three of these tools have detailed documentation.
Skills required:
Using a web interface, filling out a metadata form, uploading files
Not required, but helpful:
Working with CSV
Cost: free to $1,000/year
File storage: 500mb on free plan
Themes/customization: 2 themes on free plan
Pros/cons:
+Quick to learn
+Good tools for collaborating with others on a project
-Limited themes and customization options
-Limited widget options
-More advanced options require higher subscription costs
Skills required:
Using a web interface, filling out a metadata form, uploading files
Not required, but helpful:
Working with CSV, hosting files on the internet
Cost: Free
File storage: up to 2MB per file
Themes/customization: Only one theme, customization requires coding/markdown skills
Pros/cons:
+Easy to collaborate with others
+Advanced peer editing tools
+Widget options- timeline, image carousel, map, and more
-Limited theme customization options
-Can only upload files of up to 2mb
Skills required:
Using GitHub, working with CSV, metadata basics
Not required, but helpful:
HTML/CSS, Markdown, Jekyll sites (you can use the instructions to configure a basic site without an in-depth knowledge of these skills, but they help with advanced customization)
Cost: Free
File storage: Up to 1GB
Themes/customization: About 20 built-in options, plus any additional customization you want to add yourself
Pros/cons:
+Site is modular, so easy to move your data in and out of the site
+High potential for customization
+Collections as data option allows others to export data for reuse
-More skills required to get started
Skills required:
Using a text editor
Not required, but helpful:
HTML/CSS, configuring advanced settings may require an understanding of web terminology
Cost:
File storage: Up to 1GB on the free plan (note the free plan may include ads on your site)
Themes/customization: Many built-in options, plus any additional customization you want to add yourself
Pros/cons:
+High potential for customization
-More skills required to customize your site
-Does not have robust metadata features for creating digital collections or archives
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.