Public art inventory field checklist

Most public art inventories start as a spreadsheet, and most of those spreadsheets grew one column at a time. This checklist is the full field set, adapted from the standards museums document against (CDWA, SPECTRUM, and the Getty vocabularies) and trimmed to what a civic collection actually uses. Use it to audit an existing spreadsheet or to set up a new one.

It works in two tiers. The core record is what an artwork needs before it can go anywhere: onto a public map, into a report, out to a conservator. The extended record is what turns an inventory into a management tool. Run the core tier across the whole collection first. A complete core record for every work beats a perfect record for ten.

Both tiers are also available as starter spreadsheets, with the fields laid out as columns, the controlled lists on their own tab, and a README explaining each field: download the core record template or the extended record template.

The core record

Identification

• Accession number. One stable ID per artwork, assigned at accession and never reused. Every other system, from maintenance logs to open data, keys off it.
• Title. As the artist gave it. Record well-known nicknames as alternate titles rather than overwriting; the public searches for what a work is called, not what it is filed under.
• Artwork type. Mural, sculpture, memorial, mosaic. Pick from a short controlled list and resist inventing one-off types. Consistent types are what make a collection filterable.

Artist and attribution

• Artist name(s). As credited, one entry per contributor. For a collective, record the collective as the artist and the members in notes.
• Attribution notes. Fabricators, studios, collaborators, "attributed to". Anything that qualifies the credit line belongs here, not in the artist field.

Origin

• Dates created and installed. They often differ, and both matter. Partial dates ("circa 1985") are fine; blank ones are not.
• Acquisition method. Commission, donation, purchase, percent-for-art requirement, transfer. How a work arrived determines what obligations came with it.

Location

• Coordinates. Latitude and longitude, captured on site rather than eyeballed from a map. This one field is what makes a public map possible.
• Address and site description. The civic address, plus where at that address: "northeast corner of the plaza, facing the river."
• Setting. Indoor or outdoor, publicly accessible or restricted hours.

Physical description

• Medium and materials. Be specific. Painted steel ages differently from weathering steel, and the maintenance plan follows the material.
• Dimensions. Height, width, depth, with units. For murals, wall area.

Media

• At least one current photograph. With date taken and photographer credit. Historic photos are valuable; a current one is required, because it doubles as the baseline for the next condition assessment.

The extended record

Condition and care

• Condition rating, with the date assessed. A simple scale (excellent, good, fair, poor) applied consistently. The full detail lives in the condition report; the record holds the rating and the date.
• Maintenance requirements. What the work needs and how often: washing, wax, anti-graffiti coating, vegetation control.
• Treatment history. Every intervention, dated, with who did the work.

Provenance and value

• Provenance. How the work came to the collection, with the paper trail: agreements, deeds of gift, council approvals.
• Commissioning program and funding source. Which program or ordinance paid for the work. This is what program reporting is built from.
• Insured or appraised value. With the date of the appraisal.

Rights

• Copyright holder. Usually the artist, even when the city owns the object. Note any license terms for reproductions.
• Moral rights considerations. In Canada and many other jurisdictions these survive the sale, and they constrain relocation, alteration, and removal.
• Artist contact. Kept current wherever possible. The moment you need it (damage, relocation, a retrospective) is the hardest moment to find it.

Administration

• Owner and steward. Which entity owns the work, and which department answers for it day to day. Unclear stewardship is how maintenance falls through.
• Record status. Active, in storage, deaccessioned, lost. Deaccessioned works keep their records; the history is the point.

Working through a backlog

Three habits make the difference between an inventory that gets finished and one that stalls. Do the core tier across the whole collection before anyone polishes an extended record. Keep one controlled list per field (types, condition ratings, statuses) and never free-type values a list should own. Date every assertion, because an undated condition rating is trivia within a year.

When the spreadsheet is full, the next question is where it should live. Collections management shows what a catalog built on these fields can do that a spreadsheet can't.