A big thank you to the six people who responded to my inquiry about
software suitable for mounting online slide shows (or digital exhibits).
I'm sure my patron will be happy with the suggestions and the speedy reply.
The responses (some lightly edited) are below.
Ed Deegan
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Fisher Fine Arts Library
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ARLIS-L responses to inquiry about "online slide show" software
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We use Lightbox to power our slide show feature on our exhibits' archives pages:
Lightbox: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/#support
Here's an example:
http://soa.utexas.edu/vrc/exgallery.php?gid=50
Click on any image to initiate the slide show function
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Have you looked at SoundSlides Plus? It's a very inexpensive slideshow software that I've used to display collections of scanned images, adding additional information and external links to each image's caption using very basic HTML. I'm not sure if it can be tweaked to run perpetually, but it might be worth looking into.
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I have been working on this topic for the past year and have some recommendations. I recently used Omeka to develop an exhibitions website for the UC Berkeley Environmental Design Archives and Library [see www.ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/exhibitions ]. Omeka is open source software and is much like using a blog. It's so easy to use! The bonus is that the application is designed for museums, libraries, and archives. The Center for History and New Media, who created Omeka, has a beta version of Omeka out now where they are actually hosting your site, instead of having to download and install the software on your local server. The downside at the moment, I don't think it has perpetual slide show capabilities. The other thing I love about Omeka is that it's a flexible site that allows you to keep adding exhibitions and media. It also works with Dublin Core standards.
I've also explored other options, which I presented on last fall: http://prezi.com/rciin1t5cg36/. I've worked with Omeka and Drupal and have explored Pachyderm.
I've been able to create slideshows in Drupal, but Drupal is a complex system to use and it took me five months to get enough of the basics to really start doing interesting things with it.
Others: Gallery2 and Lightbox. I think Lightbox is used as a plugin with other applications. Gallery2 does let you play slideshows and I think can be integrated into your website. I haven't worked with it a lot, so I don't know for certain how one sets it up. I primarily use it in tandem with my blog.
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I used Google Docs to create a slideshow of images that can be private or shared as needed. It works great and includes the data about the image as well (I don't like that about Flickr either).
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One resource worth taking a look at is FlickrSlidr.com, which is
essentially a slideshow display of Flickr photos using a different
program. After selecting the Flickr user, set, or group of photos for
the slideshow, it can be embedded on any webpage. An example of
FlickrSlidr can be seen at the creator's website:
http://paulstamatiou.com/flickrslidr-my-flickr-slideshow-embedding-tool
Your patron may not be interested in animated slideshows and
FlickrSlidr isn't much for captions, but I hope this is of some help.
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I don't know if this is quite what your patron had in mind, but I am big fan of Phanfare. I've been on it for about 5 years now. It's not free, but it's not terribly expensive either, and they offer a lot of functionality; you can get any of your albums to show as a continuous slideshow, with or without captions. It's very easy to use both for loading and organizing content, and also easy for people viewing the albums to use. Here's their website:
http://www.phanfare.com/home.aspx
They have some sample albums you can take a look at as well:
http://www.phanfare.com/corp/preview.aspx
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The inquiry:
I'd like to tap your collective experience for recommendations related to
a question I've received recently:
"Topic: digital exhibits- online slide shows:
Are you up on digital exhibits of art? I am looking for one that would allow for a perpetual slide show for display. Ideally with identifications. I am looking at Flickr but find their interface for text awful. It covers the image quite a bit. If you have seen an elegant example I would love to know."
I asked the questioner for some clarification (Art created digitally? Digital exhib. of art created in other media?) She replied with an example (see URL below) of what she has in mind: digital, slide-like display of images of art created in other media. She just needs to know what display software is available that is better--more "elegant"--than Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/sets/72157623263871511
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