Background
The scholarly catalogue has long been a critical part of a museum's mission, providing authoritative information about collection objects for scholars, students, and the general public. Often based on years of painstaking research and richly illustrated, print catalogues form one of the building blocks of art history. The catalogue's print form, however, is arguably the very component that prevents it from realizing even greater potential. High cost and relatively small print runs limit its accessibility, and printed books cannot easily change to reflect new acquisitions or new scholarly knowledge. While the online environment holds much promise for making collection catalogues more current, interactive, and widely available, museums still face significant financial and organizational challenges in making the transition online.

Goals
This five-year initiative aims to explore the potential for scholarly collection catalogues in an online environment, determine the institutional resources needed, and support the creation of replicable models. Specifically, we seek to learn whether the online delivery of scholarly catalogues can:

What's Next
A group of museums—the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler and Freer Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, Tate Britain, Walker Art Center, and J. Paul Getty Museum (as a participant, not a grantee)—will take part in the initiative's pilot phase. This group convened at the Getty Center in October 2008 to discuss individual project plans and methodologies. With Getty funding, the above institutions are developing online projects. The group will convene periodically to report on progress, discuss obstacles, and share expertise. Based on assessments of the planning phase, additional grants will be available to help complete the projects. It is hoped that these first efforts will produce replicable models and lessons learned that can be shared with the broader museum community on an ongoing basis throughout the initiative. Periodic updates will be available on this site.