STEP ONE: Define the content of your collection.
I decided to create an archive of some of the graphic propaganda materials distributed for war efforts around the time of WWII. The first collection I compiled focused on the Malayan Emergency, a period right after WWII ended, when the Imperial British returned to Malaya and attempted to readminister the region. They were faced with insurgency from the guerrilla Malayan Communist Party (MCP). Many of the propaganda materials distributed during this time focused on vilifying the MCP, cajoling the MCP to surrender, and threatening the citizens to turn in any known MCP around their regions.
http://propagandamaterials.omeka.net/
STEP TWO: Build your collection
While Omeka wasn’t fairly self-explanatory as a tool, I found that it wasn’t very intuitive or time-saving in terms of building a collection. Since my collection focused on images and posters, many of the fields could have auto-populate previous answers (just as the “tags” box autopopulate previously used tags) in order to streamline the categorization. It was difficult to ensure uniform language across every field in every new item I added. I did like the simple interface and straightforward language presented by the free version.
STEP THREE: Explain alternatives
The free version of Omeka felt somewhat archaic or constricted in comparison to free WordPress, Weebly, Tumblr, etc, many of which could have probably easily taken the place of Omeka for the purpose of building a simple collection. (Omeka’s more complex offerings might be useful for more advance archive-building or collaborative work). WordPress is sortable/searchable through tags and metadata as well, and WordPress’s interface is a lot more customizable, with a bigger collection of free themes and tools. I can see the mini archive I built through Omeka presented beautifully in WordPress as well (with every ‘collection’ presented as ‘pages,’ for instance). I wondered too about the function of building archives in general, if it’s a holdover of presenting curated materials through a sort of ‘objective’ lens (even after now that we know to be never the case) (for instance, my voice, when filling the “description” box, took on an uncomfortable unsituated/unpositioned/disembodied voice), and how might DH–as a field that purports to revolutionize the humanities–take that into account and consider alternative methods of curation that goes beyond categorization.
