research-article

Networking the Archive: The Stories and Structures of Thos. Agnew's Stock Books

Authors:

Valentina Vavassori,

Stuart DunnAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), Volume 15, Issue 1

Article No.: 12, Pages 1 - 14

https://doi.org/10.1145/3479009

Published: 22 January 2022 Publication History

Abstract

This paper reflects on the recent collaboration between the National Gallery Research Centre and the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London (NG/DDH). Using the stock books located in the archives of the art dealers Thos. Agnew & Sons as an example, NG/DDH sought to address the potential that such archival sources might have in the world of digital research and Digital Asset Management. Building on this research, NG/DDH participated in the Getty Advanced Workshop on Network Analysis and Digital Art History, which encouraged us to think particularly about the role and nature of network analysis in the field of Digital Art History. In this paper we briefly describe the technical process of digitization, and the possibilities opened up by converting the transactional information contained in the stock books into structured data. We then set this in the historical context of network structures, as embodied by the World Wide Web and social media, and especially the distinction that these types of network have entrenched between objects (or persons) and topics (or other abstract entities). We conclude with an argument that problematizing this distinction – which is enshrined in the whole concept of networks and network analysis – is key if this method is to be applied to art history research.

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Cited By

Bratt SSmith A(2022)Evolutionary Archives: The Unlikely Comparison of GenBank and Know Your Meme2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)10.1109/BigData55660.2022.10020929(2490-2499)Online publication date: 17-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData55660.2022.10020929

Index Terms

Networking the Archive: The Stories and Structures of Thos. Agnew's Stock Books
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Visualization
    1. Empirical studies in visualization
2. Information systems
  1. Data management systems
    1. Data structures
  2. Information systems applications
    1. Digital libraries and archives

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Published In

cover image Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage Volume 15, Issue 1

February 2022

348 pages

ISSN:1556-4673

EISSN:1556-4711

DOI:10.1145/3505194

Editor:
Franco Niccolucci
VAST-LAB at PIN, University of Florence, Italy

Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 January 2022

Accepted: 01 August 2021

Revised: 01 May 2021

Received: 01 November 2020

Published in JOCCH Volume 15, Issue 1

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Cited By

Bratt SSmith A(2022)Evolutionary Archives: The Unlikely Comparison of GenBank and Know Your Meme2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)10.1109/BigData55660.2022.10020929(2490-2499)Online publication date: 17-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData55660.2022.10020929

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