Every few years we try to find an application that will allow our faculty to build digital collections and that meets the following criteria:
a) can accommodate multiple collection groups, with each group controlling roles and access (ex: three different departments build their own collections with no overlap between them)
b) can offer a variety of access options (ex: collections visible to the public, material restricted to groups with a password, visible to groups authenticating via ldap/shibboleth)
c) can build both collections (search/find/display individual items) and exhibits (items are displayed in the context of a narrative)
d) can accommodate images, video, audio, pdf, etc. but can also display raw xml/html (ex: TEI-encoded) files
e) can accommodate multiple designs, each generated by groups' designer instead of by a central sysadmin/designer
f) is free or really cheap
We are currently using Omeka and dSpace but neither does all of the above. Some of our faculty use their university-provided web space, sites like Flickr, or even their course space our LMS (Blackboard). Does anyone have alternative (or additional) suggestions, positive or negative?
