Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Plug Ins


Plug In


Being at the outset of our internet exhibition project our group is still very much in the brain storming mode with an open mind about the possibilities afforded by the topic of Music in the Queen City.

So it is rather dizzying to peruse the Omeka store and consider its goodies.  Only next month there will be the launching of a new Omeka 2.0 version!  I’m already excited and I don’t yet know the first thing about building web sites.

Staying with the add-ons I am tempted by several, ….Geolocation, Neatline, Contribution, SolrSearch, ZoomIt, to name a few…..maybe we can have them all?
If pressed to choose one right now though before we know what our focus, goals and mission will be, I think I’d have to choose between:




Maps and time lines are always endlessly fascinating to me and to put them together with information and imagery seems like the perfect illustration tool for almost any history exhibition.  A map can convey information that would not be possible with any other medium and an interactive map affords an even richer layer of meaning.

OR

  


Facilitating contributions gives a web site truly interactive capacity and cracks it wide open to receive  unique treasures or nuggets of wisdom, (though it also opens things up to possible mischief too).  This would be "harnessing collective intelligence" as Tim O'Reilly would say.  After pouring over archival web sites that owe their "raison d’etre"  to the public sourcing of historic evidence it is tempting to offer a way of receiving contributions on our own site.

If I can’t have it all, or even just two plug ins, I would have to be further along the research curve of our particular topic to make an informed choice.


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