Library Torrent!

Learning Omeka and Neatline

About Omeka and Neatline

Omeka is a very cool lightweight repository system that has many plugins to deal with building interactive exhibits that include geographic and temporal referencing. It is easy to install on an ubuntu server, and it is fairly easy to learn. The plugins that I have installed in our sandbox are listed below.

References

The Library Torrent Neatline Sandbox

Omeka Items

I've installed Omeka 2.0 and a bunch of extensions on my planetable.org server in the amazon cloud. You can get to the public access point at www.planetable.org/omeka2. Check out some of the images I have loaded to tell the story of John Winthrop's Statue. Images and videos stored in teh Omeka repository are referred to as Items Notice how my images are georeferenced with a point. This is accomplished with the geolocation plugin.

Neatline Exhibits

There are several types of exhibits that can be made with Omeka, and lots of ways to cusomize their interactive features, branding and styles. The Nealine Plugin lets you access Omeka Items and to use web map services to add georefwerenced maps. The Neatline Simile Extension and Waypoints extension let you cause all of these different types of content to interact with a time slider. You can also add diagrammatic elements like arrows, etc. For an elaborate example, see the second exhibit on the Neatline Demonstrations Page. You can look at my own fairly crude demo in the sandbox, here.

Web Map Services

The maps that Neatline uses must be accessible on the web via Web Map Services. It is not necessary that you host these maps yourself. We are using Harvard WorldMap's Map Warper instance to georeference maps. The great thing about this is that once you are finished, WorldMap makes your maps accessible as a WMS!

Logging in and Making Stuff

If you have an account in the sandbox, then you can create your own exhibit by logging on with your user name and password at www.planetable.org/omeka2/admin. Once you are logged in you can click the Items link on the left to add new items, or click the Neatline link at the left side of the page to start a new Neatline exhibit. Please use your initials in the name of your neatline exhibit so that we can tell who owns what.. Making a Neatline Exhibit

This is going to have to be filled out with details later. For now, we will rely on the Neatline User Documentation for details about how to do the following:

  1. Start an Exhibit with the Timeline and the Waypoints Plugin
  2. Set the default map extent and time window for your exhibit.
  3. Create a new Record from an item in the Omeka repository.
  4. Enable the item on the TimeLine and waypoints widgets.
  5. Add a Point and a Date Range to the Item in the Style settings.
  6. Add a new item that is a map by entering the WMS URL in each of the appropriate blanks.
  7. Set your maps date ranges so that it appears and disappears appropriately.