Migrating digital assets to Omeka

The Madison-Jefferson County Public Library has utilized the ContentDM digital assest management system for our digital history projects. However, faced with budget cuts and licensing limits, we decided to go open source for our projects.

Filling our needs wonderfully is Omeka created by George Mason University.

The migration is a work in progress. So far I have migrated our data from ContentDM and uploaded our images. I then used SQL queries to make cross-record corrections to the Dublin Core metadata. Customizing the templates is next task on the list.

The system is OAI harvestable as it utilizes full Dublin Core markup. Yet it also has customizable field for varying content types such as transcription and interviewer information for oral history recordings.

The creators invested time into the user interface so it would be simple enough for anyone to enter data and build digital exhibits.

The installation current resides at www.mjcpl.org/omeka.