Designing an Accessible and Sustainable Digital Catalogue Raisonné: Interdisciplinary Approaches and the Case of Ted Stamm

This thesis advances scholarly dialogue on the digital catalogue raisonné (CR) by exploring areas, such as design, databases, accessibility, and sustainability, that inform its composition. A catalogue raisonné is a descriptive catalogue of works of art that includes scholarly commentary and aims to organise an artist’s oeuvre while contextualising the artist within art history. The present text adds to these discussions by examining the Ted Stamm Catalogue Raisonné (TSCR), currently in development, as a practical case study. This research provides a model for CR developers and stakeholders, responding to the increase in CR production noted by the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). This thesis employs and contributes to interdisciplinary research spanning art history, design, and textual studies and the broader field of the digital humanities (DH). The discussion examines the role of art scholarly databases (ASD) in such projects, emphasising the importance of shared resources. The research investigates, furthermore, strategies to improve accessibility and sustainability within digital CR projects, offering practical insights for enhancing these aspects.
 
The thesis is structured into seven chapters. The “Introduction” (1) is followed by a “Literature Review” (2) that examines theoretical and methodological groundwork concerning the integration of interdisciplinary research, ASD and textual scholarship. This chapter highlights methodologies such as case studies, contextual design, DH methods and approaches, democratisation, participatory methods, collaboration, and action research. The “Design” chapter (3) includes a CR history, publication formats, user interfaces (UI), graphical user interfaces (GUI), user experience (UX) layout, components (colours, visuals, type, icons), the design system, navigation, and interaction. Figma prototypes are applied to the case study. The “Database” chapter (4) regards the digital CR as a database informed by bibliographical theories, exploring platforms, terminology, users, media, oral histories, archival studies, primary source material, ephemera, findings from the Ted Stamm Archive and a qualitative survey. The “Accessibility” chapter (5) discusses open access (OA), accessible design components, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, metadata, cataloguing, finding aids, preservation, and copyright. The “Sustainability” chapter (6) explores sustainable strategies, legacy, economics, environmental considerations, cloud storage, and collaborations. The “Conclusion” (7) synthesises these insights, reflecting on the thesis’s contributions to the fields of design and DH and outlining future research directions, particularly technological strategies for boosting sustainability and the scholarly impact of catalogue raisonné projects.