So for my group, I, as well as the rest of the group, believe Omeka could be incredibly useful. Creating an exhibition of sorts for displaying the primary sources we are dealing with, which are Civil War-era letters, would be a good way to set up a site so that the public can view said letters. In addition, Omeka’s set-up makes it very easy to layer information; as well as just setting up an exhibition for the letters and adding transcriptions, we can very easily design other sections of the site to display additional information about the authors, people and events mentioned in the letters, and other relevant information. This will allow users to peruse the main feature of the site, the letters themselves, and then research the subject in greater depth through the information on the site, and other linked sources on relevant material.
In terms of layout, among the sites I’ve looked at, I liked the websites for Mapping the Republic of Letters and University of Houston’s Digital History site. The first site has some issues with clearly needing some updates or maintenance, but the general layout was interesting and useful for finding a variety of information; with just one click from the case studies page, you could access whatever specific information you were looking for or interested in. The Houston site was simplistic in its display, but quite easy to navigate and search.
The Molasses Flood website was certainly original and unique in its display, and could definitely not be mistaken for anything else; the way it allowed for closer viewing of the material it displayed was also good, My only criticism would be that especially with having to scroll down extensively on the side-section for additional information, it wasn’t terribly intuitive to use immediately.
For sites I liked less, MapScholar struck me as odd in that it did not seem to exploit Omeka very well, there was little at first glance to distinguish it from your usual WordPress site. The Davis Diaries is clearly a good idea, but it is not displayed in any particularly interesting visual way, and again, may as well be on WordPress; the bar that lets you swap through the dates is sort of neat, but overall the site does not look especially distinctive.
