Digital Collection: Coffee, Cigar & Tea: The Ephemera Reclamation of Dutch East Indies Trade Goods
INFO-684 Museum Information Management: Collections Cataloging & Digital Technology
Project TYPE
Individual Work
Learning outcome
Museum Information Management & Technologies
Role
Act as a Project manager, cataloger, and technical officer for this individual project
KEY TASK
Metadata schema design & controlled vocabulary research and implementation
API development & data normalization pipeline (Postman, OpenRefine, Omeka S)
Decolonial collection framing & community partnership coordination (Grafis Nusantara)
Opening slide for museum of the american revolution strategic planning as the final project submission. may 2024. Still Image. Original image from author's work.
Project Overview
Mini digital collection documenting Indonesia's evolution in commercial art through historical trade labels. Reframing how colonial commercial materials have traditionally been described and categorized in existing archives.
This collection combines Grafis Nusantara's Indonesian ephemera with API-retrieved data from Europeana's Dutch colonial collections, focusing on the trade goods of the Van Nelle Factory. It serves researchers, educators, and community members with limited access to these scattered materials. Developed a collection management system, Omeka S, using CCO, Getty AAT, FAIR, and CARE frameworks to preserve cultural context alongside standardized access points.
Methods
Metadata Schema Design. Designed a custom schema using VRACore and CCO guidelines, organizing fields into identification, physical attributes, and contextual groups. Preserved original Indonesian nomenclature while enabling cross-collection discovery.
API Development & Data Acquisition. Retrieved data from Europeana using Postman, iterating Boolean operators, wildcards, and query filters (pak*); temporarily switched to Rijksmuseum metadata to troubleshoot Europeana's faceting inconsistencies.
Data Normalization. Converted JSON output to CSV and cleaned in OpenRefine to normalize multilingual descriptions across 3 languages (English, Dutch, Indonesian)
Collection Implementation. Imported cleaned CSV into Omeka S using auto-map functionality, resolving column-field mismatches and applying controlled vocabularies from Getty AAT, GeoNames, and RightsStatements.org
Ethical Framework Application. Applied FAIR and CARE principles throughout to balance open discoverability with culturally sensitive handling of Indonesian community materials.
tableau dashboard showing the designer distribution. may 2024. Still Image. Source from author's tableau work.
Rationale 1#
Museum Information Management & Technologies
Working with Europeana's API and OpenRefine taught me to handle raw, multilingual data, which required troubleshooting encoding issues and vocabulary inconsistencies. By applying controlled vocabularies from the Getty AAT and the FAIR principles, I developed a sense of how structured metadata and community-centered frameworks work together to make culturally sensitive materials both discoverable and responsibly described.
Designing the resource template and coordinating with Grafis Nusantara pushed me to think of collection development not just as a technical workflow but as an act of institutional accountability.
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