One of the major advantages of publishing a catalogue online is that it can reach people around the globe.
The Sir John Soane’s Museum is a source of inspiration for architecture students and professionals worldwide and they can now study the collection remotely following the launch of our online Adam catalogue in December 2011.
We have more than 8,000 drawings from the architects office of Robert and James Adam. Last year, 177 drawings went live and it is anticipated that a further 2,000 will be added during 2012. Each entry, complete with high quality digital images, is available free of charge.
Since July 2010 it has been my task to catalogue the Soane Museum’s Adam drawings, which are spread across 54 typologically arranged folios. This is a daunting challenge as about one third of the drawings were previously unattributed.
The work has been bolstered by newly shot digital photographs, which have been used to illustrate the online catalogue, funded by the Leon Levy Foundation.
The digital collection is an invaluable tool in the cataloguing process as it helps with new attributions and enables groups of drawings for specific buildings to be collated for the first time since the 18th century.
Previous cataloguing of the Adam drawings was undertaken by Soane curators Walter Spiers and Arthur Bolton. Bolton produced a lavish two-volume publication in 1922, including a discourse on many of Adam’s executed works, and a list of around two thirds of the drawings collection. Its prohibitive cost of eight guineas seriously affected sales.
Similar problems affected the publication of the Italian Renaissance and dance drawings catalogues in 1998 and 2003, and parallels would have inevitably been drawn had we produced a printed catalogue of the Adam drawings.
Considering the rich breadth of the collection, they would have been very expensive, and would have illustrated a mere fraction of the drawings.
Online publication provides instant, free access for all, with a handsome digital photograph of every drawing. And it will allow the Adam drawings catalogue to grow as the work is done.
Frances Sands is the catalogue editor of the Adam drawings project at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
The Sir John Soane’s Museum is a source of inspiration for architecture students and professionals worldwide and they can now study the collection remotely following the launch of our online Adam catalogue in December 2011.
We have more than 8,000 drawings from the architects office of Robert and James Adam. Last year, 177 drawings went live and it is anticipated that a further 2,000 will be added during 2012. Each entry, complete with high quality digital images, is available free of charge.
Since July 2010 it has been my task to catalogue the Soane Museum’s Adam drawings, which are spread across 54 typologically arranged folios. This is a daunting challenge as about one third of the drawings were previously unattributed.
The work has been bolstered by newly shot digital photographs, which have been used to illustrate the online catalogue, funded by the Leon Levy Foundation.
The digital collection is an invaluable tool in the cataloguing process as it helps with new attributions and enables groups of drawings for specific buildings to be collated for the first time since the 18th century.
Previous cataloguing of the Adam drawings was undertaken by Soane curators Walter Spiers and Arthur Bolton. Bolton produced a lavish two-volume publication in 1922, including a discourse on many of Adam’s executed works, and a list of around two thirds of the drawings collection. Its prohibitive cost of eight guineas seriously affected sales.
Similar problems affected the publication of the Italian Renaissance and dance drawings catalogues in 1998 and 2003, and parallels would have inevitably been drawn had we produced a printed catalogue of the Adam drawings.
Considering the rich breadth of the collection, they would have been very expensive, and would have illustrated a mere fraction of the drawings.
Online publication provides instant, free access for all, with a handsome digital photograph of every drawing. And it will allow the Adam drawings catalogue to grow as the work is done.
Frances Sands is the catalogue editor of the Adam drawings project at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
