Battle of the CMSs

So far, we've looked at several CMSs to create our online collections. This week, I am comparing most of them-- Drupal, DSpace, EPrints, the PKP Harvester, and Omeka. The comparison is from the point of view of a person using my websites. My comparison is based purely on what I can do with them. In other words, I have seen very cool things done with EPrints, but I can't do them. My EPrints website is horrible looking. In the real world, the same criteria would apply. If I'm deciding on a CMS, and I know I can do ABC but not XYZ, it doesn't matter much if other people can do XYZ. I can't, and my website will reflect that.

I think it will be easy to ferret out my preference.

Consistency? What's that?

I absolutely love, love, love metadata. For whatever reason, assigning names, subjects, dates, and the rest makes my heart go pitter-patter.

The problem? I'm a bit over-analytical. Sometimes you can really think yourself into a hole when decided how to organize things.

At first I tried to apply metadata similar to the way The Arizona Memory Project has done. The problem, though, is with my collection, that wasn't a great fit. I need to be able to say, for example, "What kind" of hero the object is about, for example, "real-life," or "comic-book." Those aren't normal subject headings. I did also try to use the LCSH as much as possible in Drupal and DSpace. In these two CMS, we can enter the subjects free-hand, so I was able to do that. With EPrints, you select from previously supplied subject terms. I had originally thought I was going to be able to use LCSH and the Name Authorities, but I misread: EPrints had the LC Classification previously installed. That was absolutely incompatible with my collection! The closest I could get to assigning a subject to the song "The Ballad of Paladin," for example, was History-- United States. That narrows it down.

So with EPrints I went back to some of the items, such as Type of Hero, that I created in Drupal (used in addition to the free-hand). So, I guess I'm sort of consistent (which doesn't sound very consistent at all).

The best part is, though, I feel as though I'm getting a little better at devising taxonomy each time I try. And it's still F-U-N!!

Installation: Almost Impossible

OK, Jim, I chose to accept my mission and installed eprints. And I'm glad I did. But, boy, I earned my paycheck!

I think I had more trouble installing this than Drupal. And I kept making the same mistake over and over, entering one password when I should have been entering the other. So, I guess I'm the goof-up, but it doesn't mean it took me any less time to install.

I also pretty much sucked at branding eprints into something cool, though I will say that I really got to know the files and directories, having to go through them to look for all mentions of the "logo.gif" and changing them to my new logo, Luke Skywalker. Oh, I guess Jim Phelps wouldn't know anything about Luke Skywalker. He's an orphan who carries a sword that shoots laser beams, almost kissed his sister, discovered his dad was really alive when his dad cut his hand off, and then saved the galaxy. Anyway.

After having looked at other eprints sites, I know that a lot of cool things could be done with the branding, look, and feel. I hate to say it, because I still have a grudge against Drupal that goes beyond this class, but Drupal has the best look and feel to it. DSpace is still the most intuitive from the administrator end for me, and eprints the least. I do feel that if I worked with eprints a while, I could do pretty well with it. But if I had to work with one right now, and be pretty much responsible for it, I'd probably put eprints at the bottom of the list and go for DSpace.