In 2021, the Digital Library Services (DLS) department at University of Cape Town Libraries launched a university-wide showcasing platform for the university’s digital collections, here: https://ibali.uct.ac.za. The site is called Ibali (isiXhosa for ‘story’) and it runs on a set of semantic web technologies called Omeka S and IIIF. Ibali is part of the Libraries’ drive to nurture an Open Access space where digital collections can be created, curated, published and showcased. It is a highly collaborative and flexible, future-thinking online repository space. Since its launch a number of diverse collections have already been showcased on Ibali - including a library of open access resources focusing on climate change, transcriptions of the early South African Black Press, and an archive on an active theatrical research project. This workshop shares the process of setting up the site, through an exploration of Omeka S, the technological steps in setting up the infrastructure, and some practices for setting up collections and sites. It is a combination of some hands-on working with an Omeka-S sandbox, a walkthrough of implementation steps, and a sharing of discoveries and processes uncovered in the work of opening up digital collections.