UNL Libraries are hosting Dr. Sharon Leon, Chief Operating Officer of Digital Scholar, to share about Omeka S, a web publishing software platform that connects digital cultural heritage collections with other online resources. This is a powerful open-source tool UNL Libraries and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) are beginning to use more and more. Dr. Leon will join us via zoom. This is a free professional development opportunity for the Libraries, CDRH, and the broader campus community.

In 2007, Omeka Classic was created in the midst of Web 2.0’s enthusiastic rush to democratize the world of creators on the internet. A free and open source web publishing platform for digital collections materials, Omeka Classic leverages a simple system of core software and extensible plugins to allow researchers, librarians, archivists, curators, students, and enthusiasts to describe digital collections materials with structured metadata, publish them, and then to activate those materials through narrative exhibits, geospatial techniques, and a range of other messages. Omeka Classic was part of revolution in digital access for libraries, archives, museums, and research centers, however by 2013 the Omeka Team was convinced that we could take a new approach to the needs of larger organizations and institutions by facilitating access through open source infrastructure that creates a way for users to easily publish and use linked open data with their digital collections materials. Thus began the design and creation of Omeka S. In this talk, Sharon Leon will offer insights in to the philosophy behind the development of the software, the ways that the Omeka Team’s work embodies its commitments to open source development and access, collaboration, modular infrastructure integration, and active reuse, and finally, a glimpse of what is to come for both Omeka Classic and Omeka S.

Dr. Sharon M. Leon brings two decades of experience in the field of digital public humanities and digital scholarship to her role as Chief Operating Officer of Digital Scholar, the not for profit corporation that stewards essential digital software including Omeka, Zotero, Tropy, Sourcery, and PressForward. In addition to directing the Omeka family of web publishing platforms, Dr. Leon is at work on a digital project to surface and analyze the community networks and experiences of the cohort of people enslaved and sold by the Maryland Province Jesuits in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Life and Labor under Slavery: the Jesuit Plantation Project. Prior to joining Digital Scholar full time, she was Associate Professor of History and Digital Humanities at Michigan State University where she launched the _On These Grounds_ project, an initiative to design, develop, test, and disseminate a linked open data ontology to describe the lived experiences of enslaved people who labored for colleges and universities. Previously, Dr. Leon spent thirteen years at George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) as Director of Public Projects, where she led teams producing award-winning projects including Histories of the National Mall, the Bracero History Archive, and Historical Thinking Matters. Dr. Leon holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities and an A.B. in American Studies from Georgetown University. She is author of An Image of God: the Catholic Struggle with Eugenics (2013), published by University of Chicago Press.

Join the zoom webinar here: https://unl.zoom.us/j/93712503007