Management of small digital collections with Omeka: the MoRE experience (A Museum of REfused and unrealised art projects)

Abstract

This article examines the main features of Omeka, a free and open source CMS (Content Management System) for online digital collections developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Omeka presents very interesting features: first, a remarkable ease of use that, however, does not affect its multiple functions; secondly, it provides tools to create, in an innovative way, virtual exhibitions for archives, libraries and museums in order to promote their collections on the web; thirdly, its extreme adaptability to collection size: in fact Omeka is used by large and celebrated institutions such as the New York Public Library and Europeana, but also by many small initiatives including MoRE (A Museum of REfused and unrealized art projects). Specifically, the second part of the article describes, in brief, the objectives and characteristics of this virtual museum dedicated to contemporary unrealized artworks; it is an experimental project, still under development, devised by a working group of the University of Parma (Italy), who found in Omeka the most suitable IT solution to collect and expose these unique museum materials.