CollectionBuilder

Project Site Code Repository Documentation

CollectionBuilder is an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that are driven by metadata and powered by modern static web technology.

Models For : Digital Collection Digital Exhibit

People: Evan Peter Williamson (University of Idaho Library) , Devin Becker (University of Idaho Library) , Olivia Wikle (University of Idaho Library)

example collectionbuilder-gh home page showing navigation features

About CollectionBuilder

CollectionBuilder is a set of flexible, static web templates for creating digital collection websites. These templates are driven by metadata and powered by modern static web technology. Using three primary components—a spreadsheet of metadata, a directory of assets, and a configuration file—CollectionBuilder helps users to build and customize sustainable, digital collections and exhibits for free, learning valuable development practices in the process.

Why

CollectionBuilder minimizes the infrastructure overhead of digital collection platforms, enabling the development of agile, unique, and sustainable digital scholarship projects. This approach allows users to focus in on the most important part, metadata and object data, rather than maintaining complicated systems.

How

CollectionBuilder provides template Jekyll projects that the user populates with their own metadata, objects, and configuration options. Jekyll builds out a digital collection site.

The most basic version, CollectionBuilder-GH, is designed to be created using only GitHub’s web interface and hosted for free on GitHub Pages. More advanced versions require the use of Git, Ruby, and Jekyll to build the final site (or a online workflows platform that can do it for you). The templates also provide Rake tasks that use ImageMagick and GhostScript to generate access derivatives of collection items.

CollectionBuilder’s theme is build using Bootstrap, and uses open source libraries such as Leaflet and DataTables to create interactive features.

Leaflet Map Generated from Metadata, https://collectionbuilder.github.io/images/home/map.jpg

Auto-Generated Timeline, https://collectionbuilder.github.io/images/home/timeline-postcards.png

Interactive Browsing Feature, https://collectionbuilder.github.io/images/home/browse.png

Generate a Timeline JS Visualization from a CSV file, which can also be filtered based on characteristics, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/1918flu/

record contributor: Evan Peter Williamson (University of Idaho Library)
last update: 2021-08-04