Omeka

Omeka is a powerful tool which allows users to create and organize information as an online exhibit. I've done some research and it appears that the interface for Omeka is both user friendly and diverse. Its simple layout offers the ability not only to easily manipulate data but also to apply ones creative flair to whatever medium they should choose.

Since my group is creating an archive of music in Charlotte I thought I would look at some of the tools available that may enhance our client's experience. Omeka offers a host of plugins that could really make the user experience on our website more rewarding and enjoyable.

Here are three of the features that I think will be very useful:

Download Logger:

Download Logger is a system which shows how many times each of the items on your website have been downloaded. I think this could be really useful because we could see which features on our website are the most popular. While popularity is not the only goal, if we have more popular exhibits then hopefully more traffic will come through all parts of our website.

Geolocation:

Geolocation adds mapping software to websites. This feature will make it easy to geographically note where certain hot spots within the Charlotte music scene were including clubs, bars, music venues, and record companies. I believe this is powered by Google maps which is an online tool that is widely used already and will hopefully be self explanatory to users. 

Dropbox:

Dropbox will allow users to upload their own media. While, in the long run, this could create more indexing work for the developers, it would be nice if we could get user contributions. The only thing I worry about with this plugin is the copyright implications. We will have to be very careful about what content we allow on our website.