My Hopes/Plans for the Project

1. Gain technical experience managing a digital collection for a historical society.
   1. Install and maintain Omeka on a webserver.
   2. Do periodic backups and upgrades to the technology as needed.
   3. At some point in the future, make customizations to the web interface.
2. Make recommendations regarding item descriptions, metadata standards, and image quality that balance local needs and national standards.
   1. Re-create the existing collections and items on the new platform. Evaluate and re-scan material when needed.
   2. Create standards for metadata and description.
   3. When appropriate, add additional metadata (like location information)
3. At some point in the future, work with the society on new projects (adding additional materials, creating new histories, timelines, etc.)

Examples of Sites

I just want to provide a sense of what I hope the final product will look like

• http://bridgesnyc.com/postcards/
• http://www.digitalamherst.org/
• http://publications.newberry.org/frontiertoheartland/ – very optimistic here!

Timeline and Deadlines

I think the first stage of the project (creating a website and migrating all the existing content) shouldn’t take more than a few weeks and I think that could be done by the middle of November. Depending on the quality of the scans, rescanning and/or improving the metadata might take some additional time/effort.

At some point, I’d love to meet with some of Society to introduce myself and get feedback on the website. Scheduling that for early November would make the most sense for me.

I could either create this on site on my own webserver and then migrate the content to the Northfield Historical domain (http://www.northfieldhistoricalsociety.org/) or I could work directly on your domain. Either way, I’d need to be in contact with whoever is the administrator of the existing website to make this change.

Questions for you

1. What are the primary goals of the website?
2. Who is the primary audience of this website? Secondary audiences?
3. What sections will this website include?
4. What will I do with items in this website?
5. How will items display?
6. What do you like about the current website? What content would you like to add? Remove?

Fine Print

I’m planning on making all the design work I do available to other people for free. You (and everyone else) will have full access to everything and I’m planning on sharing administrative passwords for everything.

I can upload the materials (photographs, text, etc.) to the website but I want to encourage the society to keep additional copies of everything (original documents, scans, etc.). Digital Preservation is a big deal and I want to make sure that the society has copies of all their digital assets.