Building Your Exhibit
Overview
We are going to implement the introductions to our documents as exhibits on our Omeka site. Each student will create their own exhibit, except when more than one student is working on the papers of the same individual. In that case, the introductions may be batched together within one exhibit, as suggested in Developing Your Introduction.
As an example, please view Carol Hemmingway's exhibit "Eartha White and the Creation of Black Historical Memory in Florida" on the Omeka site for the project "Editing the Eartha MM White Collection." That exhibit is more extensive that what you are doing for this project (again, see the guidelines in Developing Your Introduction), but will give you a sense of how the exhibit can look and be structured.
Add Your Exhibit
To create your exhibit in our Omeka site, choose "Exhibits" in the menu on the left, and then click "Add an Exhibit."
Exhibit Metadata
You will need to enter data for the fields discussed below.
Note that, like the "Add Item" form, the page does not auto-save, so must save at some point to keep from losing your work. You do not have to enter values in all fields before saving. A good practice is to enter a value for title, and then save the first time.
Title
If you have edited one item, the title should reflect that. Consider these examples:
A Letter by [Author]
A Selection from the Will of [Person]
If you have edited a group of related items, your title should reflect that instead, as in
Three Letters by [Author]
Slug
You can leave this blank. Omeka will generate it automatically based off of your title when you save.
Credits
This should be your name, as creator of the exhibit.
Description
A 1-2 sentence description of what this exhibit presents.
Tags
You do not need to tag the exhibit, but you may if you want to. If you do, tag the keywords you think would be most useful for something trying to find this exhibit.
You will already have tagged the individual documents that the exhibit discusses. I would only repeat tags you used on the individual documents if those terms are repeated in the introduction itself.
Theme
Choose "Current Public Theme" (the default) or "Thanks, Roy." (They are the same thing, as "Thanks, Roy" is the "Current Public Theme." It's the only theme we have installed.)
Use Summary Page?
This is at your discretion. If you click the checkbox, the exhibit will begin on a summary page. If not, it will begin on the first page. You can change this later as you experiment with the layout of your exhibit.
Cover Image
I would suggest uploading the first document image from your document (or from one of your documents).
Pages
When you click on "Add Page," you will be given a selection of page layouts. You can experiment with these and choose what works best.
When you create multiple pages, Omeka will automatically generate a table of contents.
Works Cited and Acknowledgements
Somewhere in your exhibit, you need to include your Works Cited, where you will list, using MLA format, the sources you have referenced in the body of your introduction.
You should also include a section of Acknowledgements, where you should thank anyone who has assisted you. This should include any archivists or others who may have answered questions, provided reproductions, etc. Please do not thank Dr. McCarl here, as his assistance is a given in the context of this project.
Publishing Your Exhibit
When you are ready to publish your exhibit, click the checkbox next to "Public."