Compiling a digital catalogue raisonné often requires significant time, resources, and attention. But it doesn’t need to.
Upfront and ongoing costs make traditional printed catalogue raisonnés significant investments for creators and readers. Editing, printing, storing, and distributing these comprehensive records of an artist’s career can cost between $500,000 and $1M. When researchers discover new information or art works after the publication, the entire catalogue must be adjusted and reprinted, incurring additional costs. The purchase price corresponds to the production price, making catalogues raisonnés prohibitively expensive to purchase and limiting access to information. This result goes directly against the goal of a catalogue raisonné to protect an artist’s legacy and increase public awareness.
A digital catalogue raisonné offers an economical alternative that invites attention rather than limits it. An individual researcher can produce a digital catalogue raisonné for a fraction of the cost of conventional catalogues raisonnés, edit it at any time, and release it at low or no cost. Navigating.art's platform makes creating, structuring, and publishing a digital catalogue raisonné an efficient process. The team at Navigating.art also offers expertise and guidance to reduce complexity in the process.
Use this guide to help you through the five steps of creating and publishing a digital catalogue raisonné.
The first step involves making a series of decisions about budgetary and staff requirements, including what skills and expertise are needed. Making these choices at the beginning of the process will increase your project’s success and save you time and money.
Gathering a team with the appropriate experience is critical. You’ll likely need a mix of the following profiles: researchers with knowledge about your artist; a collection manager, conservator, or archivist; a project manager, an editor, and a tech specialist, such as a computer developer. Use the expertise at your fingertips first, and empower the team you create to make decisions regarding digital tools, research methods, and budget.
If you aren’t sure where to start, begin by consulting a digital humanities expert at Navigating.art. Our staff can help guide your project from start to finish. Having several committed staff members of your own to work alongside Navigating.art is helpful for a successful publication.
In comparison with physical catalogue raisonnés, digital catalogues raisonnés are less expensive, quicker to publish, and simpler to maintain as researchers discover new information. These benefits make it financially possible to provide access to the catalogue raisonné at low or no cost, encouraging greater scholarly attention. All of these advantages depend on the technology used to create the digital catalogue raisonné.
It’s possible to choose individual tools for each of these components or find an all-in-one solution.
Taking a custom approach may require hiring additional technical support, such as developers and web designers, to advise on the selection of a database and servers, build a program for the team to use for internal purposes and design and develop a publicly available website. This team will also need to support software updates and other inevitable changes for the life of the digital catalogue raisonné.
The Navigating.art platform is an all-in-one solution that includes all three components. It includes data storage, an intuitive user interface, and the option for public access — no developer or IT team required.
Each project requires an amount of financial support specific to its requirements. Creating a detailed plan and budget proposal reveals the size of the upfront and ongoing investment. It is also wise to consider image rights requirements at this stage so that you can budget them accordingly.
Navigating.art has experience creating budgets for digital archive and catalogue raisonné projects, and our team can help you validate your budget proposal. If you need to request more money for your project budget, we have suggestions to help you make your case in application to foundation and government funds.
Now that you have defined the people, technology, and finances your project needs, it’s time to gather your data and resources. First, assemble and structure the materials you already have.
Remember to ask your colleagues for help. The information you’re looking for could be hiding in places you might not consider, including inside people’s heads. Institutional knowledge is great, but it works better for everyone when it's documented. Now’s the time to do that.
The data discovery and initial entering phase is also when your team should begin
establishing a structure for stored data (i.e., collections, series, and files). This structure should be tailored to your particular project.
Well-structured data is easier to find and simpler to use. Capturing and consistently storing information provides a comprehensive image of a historical moment and allows you and external researchers to make surprising discoveries.
The team at Navigating.art can help you migrate data previously collected into the Navigating.art platform, which already sorts it into an easy-to-use structure. Guidance from a digital humanities expert enables you to understand how to use the platform every step of the way.
You will likely have uncovered some information gaps during the data discovery phase. All those gaps are filled in the research phase. Your team will use external sources to find and add the missing information.
Keep in mind that primary sources may be fragmentary or hard to interpret. This material may require additional context or support from additional research.
Document the source of each piece of information. This way anyone can comprehend your conclusions during final reviews or even years later. Uncertainty is inevitable when dealing with historical information, but, remember, transparency is key. Note any uncertainty in your evidence. Piecing together history is easier when done honestly and in collaboration. This is why the Navigating.art platform lets you mark most data fields as uncertain.
A successful digital catalogue raisonné depends on the confirmation of data rights that protect its contents. Certain data – especially if it concerns personal information – may have restrictions on how it is allowed to be shared. If you choose to make the images of artworks available to the public, the correct licensing on all photos, paintings, sculptures, and archival materials must be open and accessible to readers.
Making your digital catalogue raisonné available to the public encourages education and scholarship, connects audiences who want to dive deeper with resources to do so, and positions you, your team, and your institution as essential custodians of our human history.
After planning, structuring digital storage, research, and securing rights, you’re ready to publish your digital catalogue raisonné. This might be when your IT team brings your technological tools together to craft a website with which the public can interact.
If you’re using the public access feature with the Navigating.art platform, this is when you click the button to publish your content. Remember: you have control over what people see at a granular level. You decide what information remains for internal use only and what goes to the world.
The more art information available about diverse lives, practices, and artworks, the more the public can see the interconnectedness of our moment and those of the past. Digital catalogues raisonnés contribute significant details to these constellations, improve an artist's standing, and support the work of international researchers.
Researching, publishing and validating an artist’s work becomes more attainable thanks to digital tools like Navigating.art, which enables the creation of more catalogues raisonnés and promotes maintainable, trustworthy, and accessible cultural resources.