Open Resources: free resources, tools, and research created by the team at Small Data in our work to safeguard the permenance and integrity of the world's artistic record.
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This resource is open source. We welcome and encourage edits, corrections, and additions in the form of pull requests and issues on GitHub.
As well, this resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Artwork Inventory Checklist
This document is an aid for assessing the types of information you can use to catalog your artwork in an inventory system. Check off information you are already including, making note of fields you are missing and would like to add.
We also offer this same information as a PDF download.
Required Information
Different cataloging standards will have different requirements for what information you should include in your inventory. Our recommendations for the minimum, required information to include in each work record come from these standards:
- Unique inventory ID number
- Title
- Date
- Medium
- Dimensions
- Edition
- Location
- Price
Additional Information
Beyond required information for your inventory, consider cataloging this information to document your artistic legacy in greater detail:
For adding context
- Description and other notes
- Installation instructions
- Related works and series
- Archives and supporting documents
For establishing provenance
- Exhibition history
- Publication history
- Ownership history
For sorting inventory
- Art movements
- General work types
- Subject or themes
For managing relationships
- Collaborators and roles
- Contacts