Migration stories in a digital era. Participative and biographic collecting at the Red Star Line Museum Antwerp. Marie-Charlotte Le Bailly

1. Migration stories in a digital era.
Participative and biographic collecting at the Red
Star Line Museum Antwerp
Marie-Charlotte Le Bailly

2. Overview
• Typology and overview of collection of migration stories
– Essential criteria for collecting migration stories
– Sources for personal stories
– Main channels for collecting personal migration stories
– Personal stories of migration: numbers and facts
• Access to the digital collections
– Collection management
– Digital ‘Warehouse’ (het Magazijn)
• Challenges
Migration stories in a digital era

4. Essential criteria for collecting migration
stories
• collection of ‘historical’ personal stories of migration
– Red Star Line crew members, personnel and agents
– Belgian emigrants to the America’s
– Transit migration through Antwerp
• collection of ‘contemporary’ personal stories of migration
– essentially projectbased
– specific themes related to exhibitions
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

6. Typology of sources for personal stories
• oral histories, interviews
• family histories
• egodocuments (diaries, correspondence, postcards, etc.)
• photographs
• personal documents (tickets, passports, boarding cards,
continuous certificates of discharge, etc.)
• physic collection
• drawings
• etc.
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

7. Main channels for collecting personal
migration stories
1. research for the purpose of permanent and temporal
exhibitions
2. specific museum projects (in co-operation with other
cultural organisations)
3. stories related to the physic collections of the museum
4. stories coming in through direct interaction with public
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

8. 1. Research for the purpose of permanent
and temporal exhibitions
• Stories starring in the permanent exhibition (ca. 90 personal
stories)
• Ellis Island Oral Histories (65 interviews)
• Belgian American Research Collection University of Wisconsin
(26 interviews)
• Belgian-Americans in the context of World War I (exhibition
opening end of September) (5 main stories in the exhibition
and 60 other stories)
• Oral History projects
• priority: Red Star Line passengers who are still alive (ca. 5-10 interviews so
far)
• upcoming project: Emigration to the USA/Canada through Antwerp after
1934
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

9. Stories starring in the permanent
exhibition

10. Ellis Island Oral Histories

11. 2. Specific museum projects (in co-operation
with other cultural organisations)
• ‘Transit Verhalenbus’ (194 interviews)
• Writing contest ‘Schrijfwedstrijd Wie Ben Ik?’ (141 essays)
• Expo ‘Hier ben ik?’ (20 protagonists)
• Childrens drawings (29 drawings)
• Borgerhout ‘Van Overal’ (Educational project in secondary
schools) (ca. 95 essays so far)
• Expo ‘Home Sweet Home’ (Exhibition for the occasion of the
commemoration of 50 years Turkish and Moroccan migration in
Belgium) (15 protagonists)
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

12. ‘Transit Verhalenbus’

13. Writing contest ‘Wie Ben Ik?’

14. 3. Stories related to the physic collections of
the museum (min. 100 stories)
• collections of the City of Antwerp (i.e. collections of
the former Maritime Museum, MAS, Letterenhuis, Red
Star Line Museum, etc.)
• new acquisitions and gifts to the Red Star Line
Museum
• permanent loans (private persons, the collection of
the ‘Friends of the Red Star Line’, etc.)
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

15. Collections of the City of Antwerp

16. Permanent loans

17. 4. Stories coming in through direct
interaction with public
• mails
• consultation of museum staff on appointment
• social media such as Facebook (spontaneously of response to
specific calls) (about 30 smaller stories)
• participative tools such as our application ‘Share your Story’ (48
stories so far)
• reactions on biographic content digital Warehouse (ca. 600 so
far, of which about 20 can be considered as stories)
• walk-in consultation sessions (still in experimental phase)
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

18. Stories coming in through mails

19. Stories coming in through our application
‘Share your Story’

20. Stories coming in through our application
‘Share your Story’

21. Reactions on biographic content digital
Warehouse

22. Personal stories of migration: numbers and
facts (d.d. 01.06.2014)
NOW migration stories of today ca. 550
processed and public 443
in process and not public (new
material project ‘Van Overal’)
>95
THEN migration stories in the past ca. 850
processed and public 210
in process and public 544 biographies/summaries available,
but not labeled yet
in process and not public (new
stories coming in)
ca. 100 for another ca. 150 possible stories
we are awaiting response by parties
involved
Typology and overview of collection of
migration stories

23. Access to the digital collections
Access to the digital collections
Digital
Warehouse
COLLECTING
COLLECTION
MANAGEMENT
PROVIDE
ACCESS
PUBLIC
CONSULTATION
/ RESEARCH
PUBLIC
PARTICIPATION

24. Collection management
Access to the digital collections
Digital
Warehouse
DAMS City of
Antwerp
ADLIB
Digital
archive

26. Digital ‘Warehouse’ (’t Magazijn)
• Scope
– CMS digital collections
– Providing access to digital collections
– Public consultation of content
– Interaction with public
• Content
– Database physical collections (Adlib)
– Database Belgian Emigrants to the America’s (in co-operation with
Familiekunde Vlaanderen)
– Database migration stories
Access to the digital collections

27. Digital ‘Warehouse’ (’t Magazijn)
Actual public interface
• Search through the whole website
• Four separate access-pages
1. Travellers
2. Ships
3. Objects (physical collections)
4. Background information
• Actualities (pushed content)
Access to the digital collections

28. Homepage

29. Travellers

30. Ships

31. Objects

32. Digital ‘Warehouse’ (’t Magazijn)
Projected changes to the public interface and why
• Search through the whole website
• Four separate access-pages
1. Migration stories
2. Passengers and crew
3. Ships
4. Objects (physical collections)
• Actualities (pushed content)
Access to the digital collections

33. Challenges
• development cms with private partner
• workflow and how to cope with workload
• interaction with public
• collection management
• international standards
• research opportunities
Challenges

34. Development cms with private partner
• tender
• deadlines
• communication
• project management
• debugging
• performance
Challenges

35. Workflow and how to cope with workload
• work in progress
- cms Digital Warehouse operational only two months before
opening, we still have to catch-up
- so much new material
• workflow incoming stories (keeping in contact with
public)
• workflow processing stories in Digital Warehouse
• assistence (“jobstudents”, trainees, etc.)
Challenges

36. Interaction with public
• public friendly texts (vs object descriptions in Adlib)
• participation
• crowdsourcing?
• going online
• multilingual interface
Challenges

37. Collection management
• international standards
– collection management (SPECTRUM)
– data interchange formats (Dublin Core, A2A, BioDes, etc.)
– (linked) open data (via DAMS)?
• discussions with collection management department
– tangible and intangible heritage
– digital assets
Challenges

38. Research opportunities
• growing corpus of migration stories then and now
• interviews contemporary migration, raw material
(interviews on the fly), but still interesting for
- interesting for discourse analysis
- self-image and identity
- Dutch as a foreign language
Challenges