CollectionBuilder-DHSI Workshop Tutorial

Prep for Workshop

Instructions for preparing your computer and metadata for work with CollectionBuilder

Day 0: Preparation

  1. Download and install software (Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub Desktop, Ruby, Jekyll)
    • Please use our CollectionBuilder documentation for detailed help with installing all these pieces: https://collectionbuilder.github.io/cb-docs/docs/software/
    • All software is free, open source, and cross platform.
    • If you run into problems installing some of this software, don’t despair! You’re welcome to contact us at any point leading up to the workshop and we’ll help you troubleshoot. We’ll also make time during the workshop week to address these issues, so if you don’t get them all installed by Day 1, that’s okay.
    • If you’re interested, see our section above for information about the software we use.

  2. If you don’t already have one, create a GitHub account and make sure you’ll be able to access it during class time

  3. This class will involve some editing in Google Sheets, so please be sure to have a working Google Drive account set up before the workshop begins. (If you do not use Google products, please have LibreOffice Calc available to edit spreadsheets)

  4. Watch this short introduction to CollectionBuilder: https://collectionbuilder.github.io/workshop/gh/introduction.html, and take some time to explore this demo collection: https://collectionbuilder.github.io/collectionbuilder-gh/.

  5. Prep objects for your digital collection
    • Number: 10-30 objects
    • Formats: jpg, pdf, mp3, YouTube, Vimeo
    • Size: GitHub repositories are limited to 1GB, so make sure the total size of your objects folder is less than around 500MB. Secondly, since CollectionBuilder-GH does not use thumbnails, keep your objects to a reasonable size for access on the web. The objects are usually not your full resolution versions. For example, jpg images about 1000px wide and pdfs less than 1 MB will work well.
    • Location: for easy uploading to GitHub, gather your prepared objects in one folder on your computer.
  6. Prep metadata (Optional!** – We’ll talk through the metadata fields in class, so don’t worry about this if you don’t have time to prepare your metadata yet.**)
    • Log in to Google Drive. Then, using Google Sheets, make a copy of the CollectionBuilder-GH metadata template (Use the “make a copy” option under the “File” tab. Note that the “make a copy” option won’t be available to you if you’re not logged in!)
    • If you really want to get a head start, you can follow our metadata guidelines to begin filling in the template. Any custom field can be added based on the needs of your project, but column names should be lowercase with no spaces or odd characters.