The Omeka platform has now gone live! And what is Omeka, you may ask? It is a platform for the publication of collections and exhibitions online. Eventually, the makers of Omeka, the Centre for History and New Media, intend to make it available online a la WordPress, but if you’ve got the right system requirements on your server:

• Linux operating system
• Apache server (with mod_rewrite enabled)
• Mysql 5.0 or greater
• PHP 5.2.x or greater
• ImageMagick

… you can download and install it right away. I’m in the process of setting it up on a server that I have access to – it might not work, since I’m not entirely sure what I can do on that server (although it hosted both a Joomla and a WordPress installation well enough, so I’m hopeful). The data that I intend to put up concerns the built heritage of the township that I live in. The archaeological implications are obvious, especially in terms of public archaeology. Imagine that you are working on a project in a city neighbourhood- you could use Omeka to solicit community memories much the way this project is doing. Or you could showcase items in your collection, like the Object of History site. More showcase sites are listed here.

All of these sites have very sharp visuals and aesthetically pleasing themes, and more themes will become available as this project progresses – more info on themes right here.

postscript – woops. Turns out my host doesn’t run Linux, which nuked my ambitions right there. Ah well…