We are working on creating a digital collection of art and material culture images related to Tennessee during the Civil War–housed in ContentDM, the collection will be used on a website organized by theme. The developers are working on the best way to make these two things work together and considering using WordPress or other existing website template. We want to make sure that users can go from website into ContentDM database to browse it as any researcher would want to do. Would be interested to discuss ideas around working with digital humanities content library-type collections to make them user-friendly and interactive on the front end through a website interface.
Susan W. Knowles, PhD Candidate in Public History, Middle Tennessee State University
#1 by knowlesaftel on April 1, 2011 - 3:15 pm
Anne, Although this seems like a simple and obvious need: to make content accessible in an attractive and easily usable manner, I have the same feeling. The ContentDM pages have a certain look and feel, which is fine for researchers, but we, like you, are trying to figure out how best to make everything work together. Not sure what others have done but by looking at some of the projects that the Center for History and New Media does, or helps to promote, we can probably get some good discussion on this in the workshop.
#2 by anne_whisnant on April 1, 2011 - 2:56 pm
I’ll be interested in hearing more about your issues, Susan. I am working with the UNC Libraries on my Blue Ridge Parkway project, and there are definitely issues that arise because of contentDM, but I don’t fully understand them. They do, however, seem to relate to questions of the display/web interface, and I would like also to understand this relationship better, as I fear I am often suggesting things that may inadvertently conflict with contentDM somehow.