OVERVIEW
Art Tracks is an initiative of the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) that aims to turn provenance in to structured data by building a suite of open source software tools. These tools transform traditional written provenenance records into searchable data, with an emphasis on existing data standards and a strong focus on building tools that are useful (and usable) across multiple institutions.
Once we have converted our provenance information into structured data, we can ask complex questions like “Which works in our collection were in the same city in the same year?” or “Which artworks in our collection were owned by an artist whose work is also in our collection?” By doing more with the data we already have, we can discover gaps in knowledge, shape collections policy, and better understand the ecosystem of the collection and the institution.
REFERENCE MATERIALS
The CMOA Provenance Standard is a strict superset of the AAM provenance standard, designed to resolve ambiguities and provide guidance and machine-readability. A draft version (v. 0.2) has been published. Examples of records written using the CMOA style are available.
A thesauri of Acqusition Methods has been created to help explain and define the various ways that works of art can change hands. There is also a SKOS version of this vocabulary available.
SOFTWARE TOOLS
The museum provenance library is the core technology developed for this project. It takes provenance records and converts them into structured, well-formatted data.
The Elysa tool is a user interface designed for museum professionals. It assists with verifying, cleaning, and modifying provenance records.
Initial funding for Art Tracks was provided in part by a generous grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for Phase II has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional funding provided by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
museumprovenance.org
cmoa.org
