Omeka: Person records

There are multiple kinds of Omeka records. These instructions are how to create a biographical record of an individual, which will appear on the public site here. Person records are not specific to an individual artifact or document; they are an information record only. As such, they do not have an Accession Number. This page will gives two different areas of instruction:

• Updating an existing person record
• Creating a new person record from scratch

Updating an existing person's record

This is very easy. However, you must first have a login to Omeka-S, our archiving software; and you must know how to access it and log in. Talk with the director if you are not that far yet!

1. Find the person’s record. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is entering a name in the Search box at the top of the left column.
2. Edit the record. In a search result, click on the pencil icon to the right of the person’s name. If you are already looking at the person’s record, click the “Edit Item” button in the top right corner.
   1. Text edits, including all biographical information, occur in fields on the first screen. Be careful about your entry: do not state conjecture or inference as fact, and provide sources.
   2. Add photographs or other media using the “Media” tab at the top of the record.
   3. Assign the person to an item set like “GREER: people” if they have not already been added, using the “Item sets” tab at the top of the record. If they are not in an item set, they will not show up in our records.
3. Save the record with the “Save” button in the top right corner.

Creating a new person record from scratch

Though the instructions look daunting, this full process is pretty easy and will take about 5 minutes once you are familiar with it. You must first have a login to Omeka-S, our archiving software; and you must know how to access it and log in. Talk with the director if you are not that far yet!

1. Create a new item using the “plus sign” to the right of the Items category, under “Manage Resources.” Alternatively, in the left menu, click on Items. That screen has an “add new item” button in the top right corner.
2. Set the Resource template: in the first field, drop down and select “Person.”
3. Set the Class: in the second field, drop down and find the category “Friend of a Friend.” In that category, select “Person.”
4. Set the Title with the person's name: Use the natural name order (John H. Doe, rather than Doe, John H.). Use full names rather than initials, whenever known. Put alternate spellings in parentheses. Put nicknames in quotation marks. Titles (e.g. Dr., Honorable, Prof.) may be included. For example, William Wesley “WW” Burgiss (Burgess).
5. Save the item to make sure you don’t lose your work; click the “Add” button in the top right. After it’s saved, click on the “Edit Item” button in the top right to continue editing.
6. Scroll down to Birthdate, and fill out the six biographical fields.
   1. For birth and death dates, use the format: August 12, 1863. It's fine to leave out any parts you don't know.
   2. Occupation: if the person held multiple occupations, list them in chronological order if known.
   3. Biographical text: this is the area to type out all you know about the person's life. Be careful to state as fact only that which has been verified; in other cases, use terms like "reportedly" or "was said to have."
   4. Bibliography is for listing any source material for the information. Newspaper entries can be formatted as: • The Greenville News, July 12, 1881, Page 4. Mountain Excursion.
7. Save the item to make sure you don’t lose your work; click the “Add” button in the top right. After it’s saved, click on the “Edit Item” button in the top right to continue editing.
8. Add the item set. This is critical or the entry will not show up in our records. Click on the “Item Sets” tab near the top. On the right side, underneath GHMadmin, choose “GREER: people.” In some cases, you will also add another set; for example, a person might also be included in “GREER: African-American history.” If this page is empty and there are no options for you to choose on the right side, then your login account privileges are set incorrectly. Talk to the curator or registrar to get that fixed.
9. Add media (photographs). Click on the “media” tab near the top, then click on the “Upload” button on the far right. Click on it multiple times to add multiple images. Select the files you want, give them a Title, and save.
10. Verify the site is set. Click on the “Sites” tab near the top. Make sure “Greer Heritage Museum” is listed.
11. Link related items. If there is one or more other items in our database — a person, business, artifact, archival document, etc. — that are associated or related to this individual, add a link.
    1. In the “Relation” field, click on the “Omeka Resource” button, then on the “Items” button.
    2. A column will open to the right, where you can search for the existing item. When you find it, click on the title; then click “Select Resource” at the bottom of the column.
    3. You can repeat this process to associate multiple items.
12. Save and verify.
    1. Save the record with the “Save” button in the top right corner.
    2. After saving the entry, go to https://greerheritage.com/omeka-s/ to verify that the item appears in the list, the images are showing, and the data is correct.