13 May 2011 – by ArtfixDaily Staff
Yale University has launched a massive online database with records on over 250,000 objects from its museums, archives and libraries.
Providing unprecedented, unlimited access to the Ivy League school’s varied collections, including a tantalizing peek at artwork in storage, the digitization process continues for millions of objects in Yale’s vast holdings.
Scholars, educators, collectors, dealers, and students worldwide can search the eCatalogue using keywords, as well as with advanced options, a sizable portion of the Yale University Art Gallery’s collections, with most records including images.
The user interface and organization of data works best for researchers who are looking for a specific artist or work as opposed to casual browsers. For example, an advanced search under American Paintings and Sculpture currently results in 2,289 records, add an artist’s name to the search, such as John Trumbull, and a specific set of records (130 in Trumbull’s case) appears.
Yale also launched a Rhode Island furniture-specific online database and the James J. Ross Archive of African Images, 1590–1920 (RAAI) in 2010 which are both valuable research tools.
The Rhode Island Furniture Archive is an ongoing project which pools information, research notes, and images from a wide array of museums, private collectors, auction houses, dealers, and scholars who own or have collected data on furniture and furniture making in Rhode Island from 1636 through the early 19th century.
This online archive documents such details as maker, date, and inscriptions, as well as provenance, construction notes, makers’ biographies, and bibliographies in relation to a growing database of more than 3,000 examples of case furniture, seating furniture, beds, and looking glasses.