This tutorial by Morgan Smith ’26, Vivero Fellow and student at Grinnell College, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This tutorial was reviewed in spring 2026 by Tierney Steelberg, Digital Liberal Arts Specialist.
Table of Contents
Please note, this training requires the use of a Google account to host content in Google Sheets.
What Are Static Sites?
Most of the website builders that the Vivero Digital Fellows program utilizes are known as dynamic websites, where content is generated on the fly using servers and databases. This includes tools like WordPress and Omeka, where content is built and stored in a backend content management system (CMS), which is managed through Grinnell’s cPanel dashboard. If you need a refresher on cPanel or other tools mentioned here, check out Vivero’s trainings on WordPress and Omeka!
The subject of this tutorial is a static site framework called CollectionBuilder, which provides a great tool for creating digital exhibits and collections. But before we get into CollectionBuilder, what is a static site, and why might we use one over similar dynamic platforms like Omeka?
A static website is made up of webpages composed of HTML, CSS, and other web development languages. Each page is stored as an HTML file, and displays the same content to every user directly instead of relying on a complex backend database. This means that websites load faster, tend to be more secure, are easier to maintain, and are cheaper to host. However, because each webpage corresponds to a pre-existing file, they usually don’t have a large number of pages, and there usually isn’t a backend graphical interface like cPanel to edit the website.
This means that static sites often require more technical skills to build, but can be great for projects that have limited funds or staff for hosting and maintenance over time. However, using pre-existing templates for static sites like CollectionBuilder can make it easier to get started while keeping the benefits of faster load times and reduced maintenance, keeping your website around for longer. Working with static sites as a student can also be a great way to build a larger digital toolkit rooted in fundamental parts of web development.
What Is CollectionBuilder?
CollectionBuilder (CB) is a set of open-source static web templates that can be used to create digital collections and exhibits. Each CollectionBuilder site is composed of a metadata spreadsheet, a set of digital objects, and a configuration file. This training will primarily focus on configuring a metadata spreadsheet and a set of digital objects to create a basic CollectionBuilder site, but there are a plethora of resources out there for further configuring your site using the configuration file (which is often named config.yml) and other tools for you to explore if desired.
Beyond the core components of a CollectionBuilder site, there are three different templates that you can use to create a website. The version this tutorial focuses on is built using Google Sheets, but there are also templates built on GitHub Pages and from scratch using a .csv file.
How Do I Build a CB Site?
Please note, this training requires the use of a Google account to host content in Google Sheets.
Metadata & Digital Objects
1 – To get started, you should make a copy of this Google Sheet of pre-made metadata from the University of Idaho: Watkins Demo Metadata.
2 – CollectionBuilder uses a modified DublinCore metadata schema, just like Omeka. There are a couple of fields that are particularly important though: object_id, filename, title, and format.
- object_id is the unique identifier for each item, and can be a random string of numbers or any other unique ID.
- filename is the name of the digital object file, or the full url to the digital object in our case.
- title is the name of an item, providing a short set of words to identify
- format indicates the kind of item that a metadata entry is for, which allows CollectionBuilder to properly display it.
3 – Now that we have our metadata sheet, and understand some of the key components, let’s make it accessible to build the website. You can do this by selecting by clicking File → Share → Publish to web in the top drop-down menu.
4 – You should select the Entire Document, and the comma-separated values (csv) option before clicking publish.
5 – This should produce a shareable link for your published Google Sheet, which should have output=csv at the end to indicate that it has been published as a csv file.
6 – Copy that link for use in the following steps.
Creating a CollectionBuilder Site
7 – Generally to create a CollectionBuilder site, you will need to create a GitHub Account and clone the CollectionBuilder GitHub repository. If you would like to take a slightly more in-depth approach to this tutorial, you can create one at this signup link and reference CollectionBuilder’s documentation in the Further Exploration section. However, this is not necessary to learn the basics.
8 – We will instead be using the CollectionBuilder sheets default-template site. This tool allows you to see what a site using your metadata would look like, and play around.
9 – Take the published metadata sheet link from step 6 and copy it into the “Use Metadata CSV Link (e.g Google Sheet)” tab and then click submit.
10 – You should now see a prototype site featuring objects and metadata from the Watkins Digital Collection. Please leave this site open since you will need it for the next steps.
Editing Your Metadata
11 – In the metadata sheet you published to the web in step 5, take and edit the watkins0 entry to say “This is a test change” at the end of the existing text.
12 – Now click the browse page, or the refresh metadata button at the top of the page if you are already on the browse page of the site.
13 – Try making up a metadata entry at the end of the metadata sheet, mimicking the structure of the entries You don’t have to keep this entry in the final site, but consider what information each metadata field is trying to document and how it might make it easier to find information about an object.
14 – Now that you have published a metadata sheet and transformed it into a static site using a CollectionBuilder template, you have successfully created a static digital collection! This process is best for learning how use CollectionBuilder and testing out how your metadata sheets work before building a final site. If you would like to build your own collection or exhibit, you can check out the CollectionBuilder documentation in the Further Exploration section.
Project Deliverable
15 – To share your test site with others, add your full metadata link to the end of the CB-Sheets default template site’s URL as the “csv” option, like: https://collectionbuilder.github.io/collectionbuilder-sheets/?csv=your metadata URL here.
Further Exploration
- You can find documentation on how to build static sites on CollectionBuilder on their
- The CB team have also created tutorials for using different CollectionBuilder templates as well that are a great starting point for further learning.
