Ibali Iindaba 2022 - Digital Collections UCT Webinars

31 Jan 2022
31 Jan 2022

In 2021, the Digital Library Services (DLS) department at the Libraries launched a university-wide showcasing platform for the university’s digital collections, here: https://ibali.uct.ac.za. The site is called Ibali (isiXhosa for ‘story’) and it runs on a set of semantic web technologies called Omeka S and IIIF. Ibali is part of the Libraries’ drive to nurture an Open Access space where digital collections can be created, curated, published and showcased. It is a highly collaborative and flexible, future-thinking online repository space. Over the last year a number of diverse collections have already been showcased on Ibali. As part of nurturing a growing community of practise of data stewards at UCT, DLS is continuing in 2022 with its monthly webinars called Ibali Iindaba on Wednesdays from 1 to 2 pm. Each session will look at a different functionality or new collection on the platform. This will give current and prospective users an opportunity to share experiences, collections, and projects. Details about each session will be released closer to the webinar time.

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More About Ibali:

The software behind Ibali, Omeka S, is a web publishing platform ideal for the use by GLAMs (Galleries/Gardens, Libraries, Archives, Museums), Digital Humanities scholars, but also any other user group who need to create relationships between objects in collections of data as well as describe them through linked open data resources on the internet. The ‘S’ in Omeka S stands for ‘semantic’, as in connecting to the semantic web, where data in web pages are structured and tagged. Its primary focus is on organising the various elements of a collection (e.g. people, places, media, events) such that the links in between these UCT items and the greater elements of the internet are strengthened, allowing for much more relevant searches and deeper explorations of concepts and data online.

DLS is working towards creating a highly collaborative environment, a kind of GLAM Lab, where Library staff and collaborators from UCT's community of data stewards can come together and build connections through collections on Ibali. A digital collection showcase on Ibali will allow users to experience their own ‘stories’ by navigating the links between items and through collections. Following its campus-wide launch, members of the UCT community are now empowered to organise their own collections, build their own linkages, and publish them as shared stories. DLS will provide ongoing support and training as well as guidance throughout the process, for appointed data stewards to start building collections for their respective research, teaching and learning communities at UCT.