Mukurtu Skin Draft

a template for creating simple digital exhibits

Creating Your Collection

For illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to build your digital collection, see our:

For those who can't wait, below are six quick steps to get you started.

Import the CollectionBuilder GitHub repository into your own GitHub repository.
Download the Metadata Template.
Follow the formatting of the example record in the template to fill in metadata on your own objects.
Upload your files into the "Objects" folder in your repository
Turn on GitHub Pages for the Repository
Check out your site via the link provied on your repository's setting's page!

About Mukurtu Skin Draft.

This site is generated using collectionbuilder-gh, a project to generate a free and simple digital collection using GitHub Pages from:

a CSV of collection metadata
a folder of JPEG images or PDF documents

collectionbuilder-gh is intended as a simple template for hands-on teaching about digital libraries. It can be used in a workshop setting to take participants through digitization and metadata creation, to having a live collection site hosted on GitHub.

Similar learning experiences use Omeka or other DAMS/CMS platforms that are overkill for one-off projects. Although CMS feature familiar GUI administration interfaces, they are not simple to learn and customize.

collectionbuilder-gh aims to be well documented and easy to configure by following the example. A project in “minimal computing,” it provides a depth of learning opportunities, allowing users to take complete ownership over the project and make their work open to the world.

Learn about:

Git and GitHub basics for collaboration and project management
Markdown for plaintext writing and content creation
HTML, CSS, and JS literacy
commandline literacy
Jekyll basics
working in the Open, open source and open data
digital libraries concepts such as “collections as data”, minimal computing, data-driven design

Technical

CollectionBuilder is a family of open source tools for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that are driven by metadata and powered by modern static web technology. CollectionBuilder is a project of University of Idaho Library’s Digital Initiatives and the University’s Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CDIL), built following the Lib-STATIC methodology.

Powered by the open source static site generator Jekyll and a modern static web stack, it puts collection metadata to work building beautiful sites.

The basic frame work is created using Bootstrap and jQuery. Metadata visualizations are built using open source libraries such as DataTables, Leafletjs, lightGallery, TimelineJS, FontAwesome, lazysizes, and Lunr.js. Object metadata is exposed using Schema.org and Open Graph protocol standards.

If you are interested in using CollectionBuilder, or are already using it, please drop us a line since we would love to learn more about it’s use in the wild. Questions can be directed to libstatic.uidaho@gmail.com

Get the Source code for this site!

Last build date: 2020-02-27.