Managing Large-Scale Public History Projects: The Case of Stadt.Geschichte.Basel

Managing large-scale public history projects The case of Stadt.Geschichte.Basel Dr. Moritz Mähr 10/29/2025 Stadt.Geschichte.Basel •Large-scale historical research project, initiated in 2011 by the Association for Basel History and carried out 2017–2026 at the University of Basel •More than 70 researchers studying the history of Basel from the earliest settlements to the present day •Funded with more than 9 million Swiss francs by the Canton of Basel-Stadt, the Lottery Fund, and private sponsors •Specialized team for research data management and public history •Outcome: 10 printed volumes and an online portal Mandate and Goals •Ten small-format and illustrated individual volumes (…) aimed both at a specialist audience and at readers without prior historical knowledge. •An online portal. It is designed as a virtual repository providing public access to a broad spectrum of data on the history of Basel. The portal is designed and institutionally embedded in such a way that it can be maintained and continuously updated after the end of the eight-year project period. •Continuous public visibility and dialogue with future users of a city history are important concerns of the project. Excerpt from the contract between the Canton of Basel-Stadt and the Stiftung Stadt.Geschichte.Basel, July 31, 2017 Public History Offline + Online Public History Offline Talks Book launches Books Pub quizzes Challenge: A sustainable portal for all? Public History vs. Research and Teaching Portal •For the interested public •Stories and experiences •Access to memory institutions and publisher •Dynamic and up-to-date (agenda, blog) Sources and Historical Research Data •For researchers and students •Research results, sources, and data •Open access and long-term availability •Machine-readability Portal Sources and Historical Research Data Content note •The historical materials in this database document historical processes and events. They are presented unaltered and are intended primarily for research purposes. •As historical sources, they reflect the norms and values of their time and may contain outdated, biased, or discriminatory stereotypes. Such contemporary content is preserved in the original terminology to maintain historical authenticity and enable transparent scholarly analysis. •They in no way reflect the convictions and positions of those responsible for this database. Development of the Platform for Sources and Historical Research Data •Focus on professional users in research, teaching, and GLAM institutions •Provision of objects and metadata in humanand machinereadable formats •Open access, long-term availability, and sustainability User-Centered Design and Stakeholder Engagement • Approach: Focus on data producers in early stages and data consumers in later stages • Methods: Online surveys, interviews, prototype testing, workshops Challenges •Data are produced, not merely collected (How do we get researchers to share their data?) •Data can be sensitive (How do we deal with problematic objects?) •Half-life of digital products (How do we ensure sustainability?) Integrating Data Collection •Researchers provide rich metadata for print (visible credit), but little for online. •We tied extra metadata requests to the print workflow. •Our team added contextual data to strengthen the digital collection. Problematic Objects Stadt.Geschichte.Basel digital Sources and Data •Collection, processing, and preservation •Long-term archiving at DaSCH and Zenodo Research Results •Final Volume 10 (for a broader audience) •Accessible BLV version of the open access editions (Vol. 1–9) •Lectures Thank you for your attention References Mähr, Moritz. 2024a. “Die Geschichte von Basel ins Netz stellen: Beteiligung relevanter Anspruchsgruppen an der Entwicklung eines nachhaltigen und offenen Public-HistoryPortals.” In Zusammenarbeit klug gestalten: Projektmanagement und Digital Humanities , edited by Fabian Cremer, Swantje Dogunke, Anna Maria Neubert, and Thorsten Wübbena. Digital Humanities Research 9. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839469675-007. ———. 2024b. “Werkstattbericht: Das neue Portal der Stadtgeschichte.” Invited Talk, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, March 4. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10780215. ———. 2025. “Werkstattbericht: Die Geschichte von Basel ins Netz stellen. Die neue Forschungsdatenplattform der Stadtgeschichte.” Invited Talk, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, February 10. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14845483. Mähr, Moritz, and Noëlle Schnegg. 2024. Handbuch zur Erstellung diskriminierungsfreier Metadaten für historische Quellen und Forschungsdaten . Basel: Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11124720.