Author: Megan Brett
2022
Translating Custom Themes In A Twinned Omeka Site
The Bracero History Archive was an early Omeka site built by RRCHNM. The project itself was a collaboration between multiple institutions. It brings together artifacts and oral histories from the Bracero program of the mid-twentieth century. In addition to being a significant digital history project in terms of collaboration, the official curriculum of the state of California requires students to learn about the Bracero Program and teachers frequently use this project for that purpose. This is a site that needs to stay live and functional.
Phasing Project Shutdown
As part of our sustainability efforts, we created the end of project workflow which we have shared on this site. How does that actually work when put into practice? In some cases, it has allowed us to wind down projects in stages – keeping core functionality and data accessible while removing high maintenance features – rather than leaving them up until a crisis demands triage or conservation efforts.
We used the workflow with two projects which serve as interesting examples of how to undertake this staged approach in practice. With Creating Local Linkages, we had to decide how to manage closing down the login-only area with a community of users. While we have written about Consolation Prize as a test case for end of project workflows for podcasts, the website for the show also presents some challenges, largely from the plugins which power the episode index page.
Monitoring And Managing A Collecting Project
One of the projects which came to the sustainability team was The September 11 Digital Archive. Although I (Megan) had not previously been officially involved with the project, I had been part of projects and conversations which touched on or included the site (specifically the Omeka Classic plugins for topic modeling). I also had some experience with other community collecting projects, including concerns over privacy and harmful language in relation to contributions.
Podcasts and Sustainability
In the spring of 2022, the podcast Consolation Prize was wrapping up its second and final season. As a member of both of the Sustainability and Consolation Prize teams, I (Megan) was tasked with initiating the end-of-project workflow for the show’s website. At the same time, RRCHNM’s other podcast, The Green Tunnel, was concluding its first season and R2 Studios – a podcasting studio at RRCHNM – was set to grow. These events combined to present an opportunity to create a sustainability plan for our podcasting efforts which would allow us to preserve materials proactively rather than triage five or ten years down the line.
Upgrading Antique Omeka Sites
Some of the older sites – orphaned and not – which we had to deal with fell into a category which can loosely be called “Antique Omeka sites”. These sites were created mostly before 2011, and ran versions of Omeka Classic from 0.8 through 1.2.
The challenge with these sites was that they could not be easily upgraded to current versions of Omeka Classic. As of 2022, sites running Omeka Classic 1.2.1 or higher can be upgraded straight to the latest version, but earlier versions of Omeka Classic need additional work because of changes in the database and file structures.