Update on OCHH #4

The Oberlin Community History Hub project is moving forward, if sometimes slowly! This week, I spent most of my time developing the “About” section for the site. That section includes four different pages. There is the “About” page that describes the project and gives a brief history of its development; a page that offers a how-to guide on how to use the site; a page that describes why we felt there was a need for something like the OCHH in the first place; and a page that offers information about the site’s takedown policy if someone feels that an item has been posted in violation of copyright standards.

I am also continuing to work on developing more curated content–I created two new biographical entries this week and am working on another “Exploration” mini-exhibit. We continue as well to add to the materials available on the site and to do outreach to potential community partners. This week, I reached out to a community member who has a photo archive of the Oberlin rocks (two large boulders that sit in the town square and are continuously repainted with messages by members of the community). I am hoping that she will allow us to put those photos up on the site.

Finally, Megan and I continue to talk about how to make the site easy to use, for both external visitors and for future site administrators. As we add more materials, We have been discussing the best way to organize them both for the public audience and behind the scenes. Do we have an item type category called “Primary Sources,” for example, or is that too jargony for the public? Should those instead be separated into “Images” and “Historic Documents”? Do we create collections for items by theme or item type? We are enjoying our weekly meetings where we try to figure out both how to best manage a project of this scope and how to get Omeka to have the functions that we’d like the site to have.