Omeka. Serious Web Publishing

Today at CHNM we’re celebrating the general release of Omeka 0.10b and the relaunch of a redesigned Omeka.org. We also have a new tag line—”Omeka. Serious web publishing”—to reflect both Omeka’s power and its usefulness for serious scholarship, library practice, and museum work.

Omeka 0.10b features a fully reworked unqualified Dublin Core metadata schema and extensible element sets to accommodate interoperability with digital repository and collections management software; elegant rewritings of our theme API and plugin API; a new administrative interface; and a new and improved Exhibit Builder. While the changes are extensive and represent a next-to-last step forward toward a 1.0 release in early 2009, existing users of Omeka should have little trouble switching to 0.10b. Meanwhile, visitors to Omeka.org will find a new look, easily browsable add-ons directories, improved documentation and user support, and new ways to get involved in Omeka Nation.

I’m sure my co-director, Sharon Leon, joins me in extending a special thanks to the Omeka team for their amazing work under serious time pressure to get this thing out the door. The tremendous talents of Jeremy Boggs, Jim Safley, Kris Kelly, Sheila Brennan, Dave Lester, and Ken Albers mark every nook and cranny of the Omeka website, code base, and community. Many thanks as well to our committed users and community developers. We’re looking forward to your feedback in the forums, on the dev list, on Twitter, and on Flickr, and to your help in spreading the word about the new Omeka.

Omeka 0.10. Serious web publishing.