Collections
The map ‘Offers voor mooi weer’ (Offerings for Good Weather)
The ‘Volkskundige Trefwoordenbank’ (the Folklore Keyword List)
Audio apparatus (part of the audio collection)
The numbers
Both the Huygens Institute and the Meertens Institute are part of the Humanities Cluster (HuC) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Within this organization I am resposible for the Collection Management of the collections of the Meertens Institute. The collections consist of over 2 km of archival material, 15 TB digital data, 6000 hour of audio recordings. For a short introduction you can watch this video about the collections.
In the first picture (above) is the map ‘Offers voor mooi weer’ (Offerings for Good Weather). It is part of the collections of the Meertens Institute. The map shows a clear border between the offerings of an egg and a sausage. This border posed a fundamental problem for researchers. Cultural borders were supposed to be hundreds or maybe even thousands years old and this one follows the border between the Netherlands and Belgium of 1839. How can that be explained? You can read more about it in De Kaartenbank. In the second picture you can see the ‘Volkskundige Trefwoordenbank’ (the Folklore Keyword List). It features a prominent role in J.J. Volkskuil’s seven-volume novel about the Meertens Institute, called Het Bureau. The audio apparatus in the third picture is a mobile gramophone for recording sounds and it is part of a substantial audio collection, which includes over 6000 hours of audio recordings.
Innovation
Next to being Manager Collections, my role is to facilitate innovation as Senior Research Data Manager. An example will give the best insight: one of my most successful projects is The Dutch Dialect Database. At the website you can search through, listen to and download all the Dutch dialects spoken in the Netherlands and abroad. The Dutch Dialect Database received funding form DANS and the KNAW.
Sounds of the netherlands
If you want to know more about the audio collection, listen to Frits Spits at the ‘Taalstaat’ (NPO radio). Together with Marc van Oostendorp and Kees Grijpink, I was interviewd about the symposium 'Geluiden van Nederland' (Sounds of the Netherlands).
For more radio interviews about the collections of the Meertens Institute please go to this page.
