The catalogue raisonné: works

A catalogue raisonné lists every work by an author, each under a number that lets it be cited, with what is known about it: who made it and on what evidence, its prints, the hands it passed through, the exhibitions and publications it appeared in. The Works section is the heart of this undertaking.

Work and file

A work is the citable unit of the catalogue. It is distinct from a file in the library:

• a work can have several files: negative, scan, master, derivative, installation view…;
• a lost or destroyed work may have no file at all;
• a library file never becomes a work on its own: you are the one who creates works.

The list of works

On the left, the list of works. Each row shows the catalogue number, the title, the series, the condition if the work is not “Extant”, a padlock if it is confidential, its status and its completeness.

The completeness ring fills with the score: it is green, with a check mark, once the publication threshold is reached, orange from 30%, red below. Hovering over the ring gives the percentage; VoiceOver reads each row as one sentence, in the order shown, and the ring with the threshold (“Completeness, 45%, below the publication threshold (60%)”).

• Search works (⌘F, Edit › Find…) searches everything that describes a work (see below).
• The facets filter by Status, Existence, Attribution and Series; With inconsistencies / to check keeps only the works on which the data checks find something to address (see Data checks); Clear filters resets them.
• Sort: Relevance, By number, By title, Oldest first, Newest first, By completeness, Recently edited.
• Load more shows the next works of a long list.

Choose a work to open its record on the right. Selecting several works (⌘-click, ⇧-click) opens the batch editing panel instead (see Batch editing).

Searching

The search finds a work by its number, its titles (subtitle and other titles included), the agents of its attributions (rejected attributions excepted), its series, type, technique, support, genre, dates and place, its description, artist’s statement and internal notes, the exhibitions and publications it or one of its prints appears in, its provenance (parties and places), the numbers of its prints and certificates, the inventory numbers of the work and its prints, its former numbers, its circumstances of creation, project, film or sensor and format, its history and analysis, the signature text of its prints, the notes of its relations, its storage locations (reference and kind), the auction sales of its provenance and of its prints’ (auction house, sale, lot), its conservation (the conservator, description, reference and note of each intervention, on the work or a print, and the note of the work’s condition), its rights (holder, terms, restrictions, note) and the documents of the work and of its prints (title, file name, reference, note). Amounts, prices, estimates, costs, currencies and a print’s holder and location are never searched, nor kinds and codes (the “Good” condition, the licence). Current limitation: the change history is not searched.

• Accents and case are ignored: eglise finds “Église”, oeuvre finds “Œuvre”. Every word must appear, as the start of a word: fal finds “Falaise”.
• A number is searched whole (1 does not find 1975), and a catalogue number can be typed without its zeros: 42 finds JM-1975-0042. 19* searches everything starting with 19.
• "église du port" (or « église du port ») searches the exact phrase; "église du p"* searches it as a beginning.
• -falaise leaves out the works containing the word; -artist:durand those of that agent.
• paris OR lyon finds either one: paris OR lyon 1975 searches (Paris or Lyon) and 1975.
• To search one field only: artist:, title:, series:, exhibition:, pub:, prov:, no:, inventory:, cert:, followed by a word or a quoted phrase (artist:"Jeanne Marchal"). no: searches the catalogue number, cert: (or print:) the numbers of its prints and certificates, inventory: (or inv:) the inventory numbers of the work and its prints: inv:"AT-1975-12", former: (or concordance:) its former numbers and their source: former:42, former:drouot, storage: (or location:) its storage locations, by reference or kind: storage:"Box 12", storage:drive, related: (or relation:) the number and title of the works it is related to: related:JM-1975-0042 lists the works related to JM-1975-0042 (see Relations). A bare word never searches the related works: JM-1975-0042 finds that work only. sale: (or auction:) the auction sales, conservation: (or restoration:) the conservation, rights: (or license:) the rights, doc: (or document:) the documents: sale:drouot, conservation:"report 2019". The French names work too (artiste:, série:, inventaire:, ancien:, lié:, emplacement:, vente:, droits:…). An unknown field name is searched as text.
• year:1975 or year:1970-1979 filters on the Sort date (from); status:published (draft, review, validated, withdrawn) on the status.

Typing a search switches the list to the Relevance sort: works whose number or title matches come before those that only mention it in their notes; ties keep the catalogue order. Clearing the search goes back to By number; another sort you chose is kept. The list follows your typing after a short pause. Return on an exact catalogue number (JM-1962-001) opens the work; failing that, on a work’s exact inventory number.

If a work you know is described is not found, Rebuild search index, in the ⋯ menu, rebuilds the index from the catalogue.

The works table

To see all the catalogue raisonné data at a glance, without opening each record, switch the section to Table: the three buttons next to New work choose List (the list and the record side by side), Table or Gallery (see The works gallery). The table takes the section’s whole width, one row per work.

Columns. The Columns menu (and a right click on the headers) offers every field of the record, grouped: identification (reference image as a thumbnail, catalogue no., inventory no., title, other titles, subtitle, type, series, genre), date and place (date as published, sort dates, precision, place), technique and support, attribution (author of the accepted attribution, certainty), description (description, artist’s statement, rights statement), prints and provenance (number of prints, prints’ inventory nos., number of provenance events, last holder, the prints’ production value, public price and insured value), exhibitions, publications and files (their number), record status (condition, storage location, status, completeness, confidential, internal notes, publication, creation and edit dates, Checks: the number of findings of the data checks and the most serious, “2 · Inconsistency”). The catalogue number is always shown. Four presets: Identification (the one shown first), Provenance, Exhibitions and All columns; Reset columns goes back to the first.

• Move a column: drag its header. Resize: drag the edge of its header.
• Sort: click a header; a second click reverses the order. Case and accents are ignored (“Été” sorts with the Es), empty values always go last, and two equal works keep the catalogue order. Choosing a sort in the facets’ menu goes back to the list’s sorts (Relevance during a search).
• Catalog remembers the columns chosen, their order, widths and sort, and the view (List, Table or Gallery), from one session to the next.

Search and facets apply to the table as to the list, and the selection is the same: a work chosen in the table is still chosen back in the list.

Selecting: a click, ⇧-click, ⌘-click, ⌘A for every row of the table. Under the table, the selection bar holds the list’s batch actions: Open record (one work), Edit…, Attribute…, and in its ⋯ menu Add to an exhibition…, Cite in a publication…, Apply series defaults and Report from the selection…; Deselect (Esc). Delete (⌫) asks to delete the selected work, as in the list.

Opening a record: double-click a row, or press Return. The record opens in the List view, as a cited record does (Back, ⌘[, returns to the record before); the Table button brings back the table as you left it, selection and sort included.

Confidential data. The table shows it as the record does, with its mark: a padlock before “Confidential” for a confidential work, and before the last holder when it comes from a confidential provenance event; hovering over the padlock says why, and VoiceOver reads “Confidential” before the value. The last holder is that of the Provenance tab: the party receiving the work (or the place) at the latest dated event, of the work or of one of its prints. Internal notes are shown, as in the record, but never leave the application. The three value columns add up the current values of the work’s prints (production and insurance) or give the range of their public prices (edition tiers included), currency by currency, always with the padlock; they do not sort.

Export this table… (⋯ menu, in the Table view) writes one CSV file: every work of the table (not only the rows on screen), in its order, with its columns shown, in their order, and their titles as headers: it is the table as you see it, its values in the interface language (for a file with stable columns and codes, use the CSV export, see CSV). The thumbnail and the internal notes are never exported. The confidentiality rule is that of the exports (see Exporting the catalogue): by default, confidential works are left out, the Storage location and value columns stay empty, and the last holder and the number of events only count publishable events. Include confidential records requires a justification; it goes with the file (<name>-CONFIDENTIAL-EXPORT.txt, beside it) and into the Confidential exports log of Settings › Privacy. The choice holds for this export only. The default separator comes from Settings › Exports.

The table reads the works by pages, as you scroll: 20,000 works scroll like 20.

Current limitation: the fields brought by recent versions (former numbers, typed other titles, circumstances of creation, project, film / sensor, format, relations, sales, conservation, structured rights) have no column yet; the Rights statement column is the free statement.

The works gallery

To recognise a work by its image, browse a series or spot the works that have no reference image yet, switch the section to Gallery (the third button next to New work). One thumbnail per work, across the section’s whole width:

• the work’s reference image, whole in its frame: its shape is kept, it is never cropped. It comes from the thumbnails Catalog prepares for the library, never from the original file, and is read only when its thumbnail comes on screen;
• a work without a reference image shows a “No image” frame; a work whose reproduction is excluded (Identification tab) shows “Reproduction excluded”, and its image is never shown, even when it has one; an image whose file cannot be found (disk disconnected, file moved) and that Catalog has no thumbnail of yet shows “Missing”, as in the library — a thumbnail already prepared stays shown, disk connected or not;
• under the image, the catalogue no., the title (“Untitled” when there is none) and the date; a confidential work has its padlock before the number, as in the list.

The slider above the gallery sets the thumbnail size; the thumbnails widen to fill the row. Catalog remembers the size and the view from one session to the next.

Search, facets and sort are the list’s, and the selection is the same: a work chosen in the gallery is still chosen in the list and the table. The list has no grouping by series: to browse a series, choose it in the Series facet.

Selecting: a click, ⇧-click, ⌘-click, ⌘A for every work of the gallery; with the keyboard (click in the gallery first), the arrows move from one thumbnail to the next, ⇧ with the arrows extends the selection, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down jump, Esc deselects. Under the gallery, the selection bar is the table’s (Open record, Edit…, Attribute…, ⋯ menu). Delete (⌫), or a right click, Delete work…, asks to delete the selected work, as in the list.

Opening a record: double-click a thumbnail, press Return, or right-click, Open record. The record opens in the List view; the Gallery button brings the gallery back on the work opened.

VoiceOver reads the thumbnails row by row, each as one sentence: “JV-0001, La terrasse, 1962”, then “Confidential record”, “No image” or “Reproduction excluded” when it applies.

The gallery reads the works by pages, as you scroll, and keeps in memory only the images near the screen: 20,000 works scroll like 20.

Creating a work

New work (⌘N, also File › New Work, from any section) creates a draft work, untitled, with the catalogue’s next number, and opens it.

Creating works from files

To catalogue files already in the library in one go: the ⋯ menu (More actions), Create works from n unlinked files…. An “unlinked” file is linked to no work.

Nothing is created before you confirm. Catalog first shows how many works will be created and their numbers (“numbered … to …”): one work per file, each file becoming the reference image (role “Master”) of its work, and giving it its title and description if it carries them. Create n works confirms, and the report says how many works took their image’s title, and how many took its description. The numbers assigned are never reissued, even if you delete these works later. At most 5,000 files are taken into account each time.

To catalogue only some files, start from the library: select them in the grid, then Works › Create works from the selection… (one work per file, or one work for the whole selection, with the reference image of your choice). At the end of a folder import, Create works from these files… does the same for the folder’s files linked to no work. The library’s inspector shows the work of a file and links a file to an existing work (see The work of a file).

Without a licence, the catalogue is limited to 50 works; a licence raises this limit according to the plan (see Licence and free tier). Beyond it, New work is refused with the reason; creating works from files that the limit cannot hold entirely is not started. Browsing, editing and batch editing existing works never require a licence.

Numbering

Each work receives a catalogue number when it is created, by default of the form SB-2026-000154: a prefix, the year the work was created in Catalog, and a six-digit sequence number. The sequence starts again at 1 each year when the year is part of the number.

Three rules protect citations:

• a number is never reissued: the number of a deleted work stays reserved, and skipped numbers are not filled in;
• the number of a published work no longer changes: it is what the work is cited by;
• the variant (A, B…) tells two states of one exposure apart; it too is frozen on publication.

Setting up numbering

Obscura Catalog › Settings… › Catalogue (the Works ⋯ menu, Catalogue settings…, takes you there):

• Fonds — the name of the Workspace, which you can change (“Jeanne Valory Estate”): it is the source of LIDO records when Settings › Exports gives none, and the name of export files. It cannot be empty, span several lines or exceed 120 characters;
• Work numbering — Prefix, Include the year, Digits (from 1 to 12), with an Example;
• Inventory numbers — optional: Propose numbers from a scheme, then Prefix, Digits and First number, with an Example (see Catalogue no. and inventory no.);
• Publication — the Publication threshold, from 0 to 100% in steps of 5 (60% by default);
• Default confidentiality — New works confidential (off by default), New prints confidential and New provenance events confidential (on by default): the “Confidential” box of a record created afterwards (by New work, creating works from files, the CSV import, a new edition, a new event) starts from this choice, which each record can change. Nothing that already exists changes. An event with a living person as a party stays confidential whatever this choice (see Living persons);
• Reassess an insured value after — the age, from 1 to 20 years (3 by default), past which the Prints tab flags an insured value to reassess (see The values of a print);
• Series defaults — the values of each series (see Series values), to edit without opening a record;
• Completeness weights — what each criterion is worth, read-only (total 100).

Save (⌘S) applies the changes, Revert drops them.

Set up numbering before the first work: as soon as a work carries a number, these settings are locked, so that a corpus has only one citation format. The inventory number scheme never is.

Catalogue no. and inventory no.

Two numbers, which do not designate the same thing and are never derived from each other:

• the catalogue no. (SB-2026-000154) designates the work in the published catalogue raisonné. Catalog assigns it; it no longer changes once the work is published and is never reissued;
• the inventory no. designates a physical object (a print, a plate, a negative) in a fonds, a studio or a collection, with its own logic: order of entry, archive reference, an institution’s number, often older than the catalogue. Each print has its own (Prints tab, see A print’s inventory number); a work can have one too (Identification tab), for a fonds that inventories the work rather than its prints.

An inventory number is optional and typed freely; it is unique in the fonds: two works, two prints, or a work and a print cannot carry the same one. It stays editable: it is not a published citation.

Case and spaces don’t make another number. INV-042, inv-042, INV 042 and INV 042 are, for Catalog, the same number: upper and lower case are not told apart, and spaces (leading, trailing and inside, non-breaking spaces included) don’t count. Other signs do: INV-042, INV.042 and INV042 are three numbers, É-1 and E-1 two. The number is kept and shown as you typed it (without leading and trailing spaces).

Checked as you type. A fraction of a second after the last keystroke, Catalog checks whether the number is already given in the fonds. If it is, the field says so and names the holder: “This inventory no. is already given to “Brume sur l’étang” (2026-012).”, or “… to print 2026-012-3 of “Brume sur l’étang” (2026-012).”; if the number is written differently there, it says how (“It is written “INV-042” there”). Save stays dimmed while the conflict lasts. Two buttons under the message: Open record opens the work that carries the number (on its Prints tab when it is a print; you are first asked to save or discard your unsaved changes, as for any change of work), and, when a scheme is set, Assign the next free number replaces the number with the scheme’s next one. The number the work or print already carries is never reported as a conflict, even written differently. If the save is refused all the same (a number given elsewhere in the meantime), the message names the holder too.

Duplicate numbers from an older library. Before this version, two objects could carry numbers that differed only by case or spaces (INV-1 and inv 1). Updating the library changes none of them: when Works opens, a banner says how many numbers are given to several objects this way; Show the records lists them (number as written, work or print, Open record) and Not now hides the banner until the next launch. The record of one of these objects also says so under the field, without dimming Save: it saves as long as its number stays the same, case and spaces aside. Change one of the two numbers for the banner to go.

With a scheme set in Settings › Catalogue › Inventory numbers (for instance the prefix INV-, four digits, from 1), Assign an inventory no., next to the empty field, fills in the number after the highest already given to a work or print of the fonds under that scheme (INV-0043 after INV-0042, and also after an inv-0042 typed in lower case), to save with the record. Without a scheme, the button does not show.

The inventory number goes out in the exports (CSV, LIDO, CIDOC), the reports and the search (inventory:). The identifier a library file may carry on its own (the file_number column of the library export, “File no.”) is not an inventory number and is no longer printed in records.

A work’s record

At the top of the record, the reference image large, across the whole width of the record and in its proportions. Click it (or press Space when it has the focus, or the magnifier button to the right of “Reference image”) to view it large on a dark background, as in the library: ← and → go to the work’s other linked files (the reference image first, then from negative to derivatives), Space, Return or Escape close it. Only files present on this Mac show there. “Reference image” folds the image into a thumbnail to save room, and unfolds it; Catalog remembers this from one session to the next. A work without an image offers Link a photo…, which opens the choice of a library file: the first one linked becomes the reference image. The image is drawn from the library’s previews, never keeping the record waiting; VoiceOver reads it with the work’s number and title.

Below: the image’s thumbnail when it is folded, the number, the title, the attribution wording as it will print (“Attributed to …”, “Studio of …”, “Attribution disputed”…), the completeness ring and, if something is missing, the Next: missing criterion link (⇧⌘M), which takes you to the most important field or tab to fill in.

Just below, the work’s status and the possible status changes, then, on the right, Delete…, Revert and Save, in the same order as on every record.

The record has eleven tabs: Identification, Attribution, Prints, Conservation, Provenance, Exhibitions, Publications, Relations, Rights, Files, Documents. When the column is too narrow for all eleven, they move into a menu that shows the open tab. Attribution, prints, conservation and provenance are described in the chapter Attributions, prints and provenance; exhibitions and publications in the chapter Exhibitions and publications.

Room for the record

The record shares the section with the works list. To give it room without resizing the window:

• Hide Works List (⌥⌘L, View › Hide Works List, or the first of the two buttons at the top right of the record) gives the record the whole width of the section; Show Works List brings it back. Find… (⌘F) brings it back too, since the search field is in the list;
• Record in Full Window (⇧⌘F, View › Record in Full Window, or the second button) hides the list and the sidebar: the record fills the whole window, which you can enlarge or switch to full screen like any Mac window. Exit Record Full Window (same shortcut) brings the list back as it was; choosing another section brings back the sidebar;
• the divider between the list and the record can be dragged with the mouse (or adjusted with VoiceOver); the list keeps at least 320 points, the record 420.

Catalog remembers these choices from one session to the next: the hidden list, the full window and the divider’s position. The list comes back by itself when no work is open, or several are selected: that is where you choose. Back and Forward (⌘[ and ⌘]) move from one record to another without the list.

The full window is not another window: it is the same record, with Edited, Save and Revert, and changing work with unsaved changes asks the same question. Catalog has a single window.

Identification

The screenshot shows the top of the tab; the Creation and capture, Scholarly notice, Shooting data, Traceability, Change history and Certificates issued groups are further down.

• Identity — Catalogue no. (not editable), Variant, Inventory no. (optional; Assign an inventory no. when a scheme is set), Former numbers, Title, Subtitle, Other titles, Title language (a language code: fr, en, ja…; the LIDO and CIDOC exports tag the title with it, with the language of Settings › Exports when the field is empty), Series, Genre, Work type. The former numbers are the concordance with earlier catalogues, inventories and sales: Add a former number adds a row, the number and its source (“Catalogue 1985”, “Drouot sale 1990”); a work has as many as it needs, they are searched (former:) and they are never catalogue numbers. The other titles are typed: Add a title adds a row, its type (Original title, Translated title, Former title or Other title), the title and its language (a code: fr, en, ja…). The alternate titles from before the version that brought the types became Other titles, with no language, in their order: nothing is lost or guessed. Under the Title, the record points out a title that differs from the reference image’s (Title differs from the image), with Use the image’s title and Write the title into the image…; saving a new title offers to write it into the image too (see The work’s title and the image’s);
• Technique & support — Technique, Support;
• Dates — Date as published (this is what prints: “circa 1974, perhaps 1975”; it stays free text), Sort date (from) and Sort date (to), Precision (day, month, year, circa, decade, range, unknown). The sort dates are only used for sorting and facets; the end date cannot precede the start date. Use as the sort date fills the sort dates and the precision from the date as published when it reads without ambiguity (1974-03-12, “circa 1974”, “1970s”, 1970–1975); a date that reads two ways (12/03/1974) or not at all (“spring 1974”) fills nothing, and the record says so under the field. The precision follows what you type in Sort date (from) (day, month or year), except “circa”, “decade” or “range”, which you choose. Choosing a precision coarser than the date (“Year” for 1974-03-12) shows 1974 without removing anything: the record says the stored date is still 1974-03-12, and Cut the date to the precision… removes the detail, after a confirmation. See Typing a date;
• Context — Place, the place’s Latitude and Longitude (in decimal degrees, WGS 84, as a camera’s GPS writes them: 48.8566 and 2.3522; both or neither, each within its range, or Catalog refuses to save), Existence (extant, lost, destroyed, location unknown, not traced), Confidential record (the Rights statement is in the Rights tab);
• Storage location — where the work is kept in the fonds: Add a location adds a row, its kind (Hard drive, Binder, Box, Drawer, Shelf or Other) and its reference (“Box 12”, “LaCie 4 TB — /Archives/2022”); a work has as many as needed (the negative in a binder, its scan on a hard drive, a print in stock in a box: “Print 2/8 — Box 12”), and a row without a reference is not kept. It is internal information: it is searched (storage:), tracked in the change history and has its column in the table, but it only leaves in a CSV export that includes the confidential records, never in LIDO, CIDOC, a report or a certificate. A print held by someone else is located by its holder and its provenance;
• Creation and capture (collapsible) — Circumstances of creation (commission, reportage, sitting…), Artistic project (the artist’s project, distinct from the imported folder and from the series), Film / sensor (“Tri-X 400”, “full-frame sensor”), Format (6×6, 4×5, 35 mm…);
• Description — Description, Artist’s statement, Internal notes (never exported and never printed, whatever the options);
• Scholarly notice (collapsible) — History (how the work came about, its fortunes, its states), Analysis, critical commentary (the catalogue raisonné prints it under the heading “Critical commentary”) and Dating rationale (the sources and the reasoning behind the date), distinct from the description and the artist’s statement, published with the record. Besides them:
  • State rank — None, or I, II, III…: the work’s rank among the states of its image, printed “State II”. It is entered, never worked out from the relations; the other states are linked in the Relations tab (Other state);
  • Reproduction exclusion — None, or the reason: Rights not obtained, Artist’s or estate’s choice, Holder’s request, Other reason. An excluded reproduction is never printed in a report, even when its image is there: its reason prints instead (see Reports). The reference image stays in the catalogue, and completeness does not change.

The two collapsible groups are open when they hold something, closed otherwise: a record that does not use them stays as short as before. Click their title to open or close them.

Under the scholarly notice, in this order, four read-only groups, collapsed by default (click their title to open them; they stay open from one tab to the next):

• Shooting data — the camera, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and capture date read from the file: the master’s, else the negative’s (or the plate, sheet film, transparency), else the reference image’s, the first that carries any. The group names the file read; these values are corrected in the library (see EXIF and XMP metadata), not here;
• Traceability — the record identifier (UUID, which never changes), the dates the record was created and last modified, the source file (the shot one, else the reference image) with its SHA-256 checksum and size;
• Change history — what changed in the record, its prints and its attributions, field by field, before and after, with the date and the origin of each change (see The change history);
• Certificates issued — the certificates of authenticity issued for the work and its prints, with their number (and their version from the second one), status (valid, superseded, revoked), subject and date. They are issued, reissued and revoked in the Certificates section (see Certificates).

When the record is wide, the groups are laid out in two columns (Identity on the left; Technique & support, Dates, Context, Storage location, Creation and capture on the right), with the description and the following groups below across the whole width; in a narrow record, a single column, and the short fields (Series and Genre, the sort dates) go one under the other when they no longer fit side by side. Description, Artist’s statement and Internal notes grow with their text: everything reads without a scroll bar inside the field.

While your changes are not saved, the record’s header shows Edited. Save (⌘S) writes them; Revert discards them. Both buttons are at the top of the record, next to the completeness ring: they stay within reach from every tab, without scrolling the form.

Changing tab or section loses nothing: you find the record as you left it. Choosing another work (or creating one) with changes in progress first asks “Do you want to save the changes to “…”?”:

• Save — writes the record, then opens the chosen work. If a rule refuses the save (inverted sort dates, for example), Catalog says so and stays on the record;
• Don’t Save — discards the changes and opens the chosen work;
• Cancel — stays on the record, changes intact.

Confidential record excludes the work from every export by default (see Exporting the catalogue).

Typing a date

Every structured date of Catalog is typed in the same field: a work’s sort dates, the date of a provenance event and of an auction sale, the date of a value and of a price tier, of an intervention, of a document, the rights’ expiry, the start and end of an exhibition, an agent’s birth and death.

• The mask: type the digits, YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD; the dashes are added for you (19740312 becomes 1974-03-12), and a dash typed after a one-digit month completes it (1974-3- becomes 1974-03). A partial date is a date: 1974 or 1974-03 will do.
• The calendar: the button to the right of the field opens a calendar; a click on a day writes it into the field.
• The keyboard: ↑ and ↓ move the year, the month or the day at the cursor forward or back (an empty field takes the current year). VoiceOver reads the format.
• The checks: a date that does not exist (2018-02-30, “February 2018 ends on day 28”), an incomplete date or an end before the start is said under the field, in words and with a symbol; Catalog refuses to save it. A date stored before this version is only judged once changed.
• What stays free text: a work’s date as published and an exhibition’s dates as published (what prints), a print’s year printed and date signed (“circa 1980”), a publication’s year (“n.d.”). “Circa”, a decade or a period are said in the date as published and in the precision, never in the mask.

The storage does not change: dates stay in ISO format, and the exports write them as before.

Series values

The works of one series often share technique, support, genre, type and rights. In a work whose Series is filled in, the Series defaults menu, at the foot of the Identification tab, offers:

• Save as series defaults — records this work’s work type, technique, support, genre, rights statement, the author of its accepted attribution and its first line of rights (Rights tab);
• Apply series defaults — fills the work’s empty fields (work type, technique, support, genre, rights statement) with these values, and copies the series’ line of rights onto it if it has no rights yet; and makes the series’ default agent the accepted author (photographer, Certain) of a work that has no author yet: a work that already has an accepted author, an open attribution (neither accepted nor set aside) or a set-aside attribution of that agent does not change; fields filled this way, the list of rights and the attribution are marked “inherited”.

Settings › Catalogue › Series defaults shows the same values, series by series: work type, technique, support, genre, rights statement, the default agent and the rights, which can be Removed there (they are chosen from a record). Save keeps them for the next time they are applied. The Series introduction is written there too, the text that opens the series in the catalogue raisonné: it is never copied onto the works, and Save as series defaults leaves it as it is.

The values are copied into the work: changing the series values later does not rewrite works already filled in. The menu acts on the saved work: while the record is Edited, save it first.

Rights

The Rights tab says who holds the rights in the work, on what terms it may be reproduced, and until when. The rights are the work’s, never a print’s: selling or giving a print does not hand over the right to reproduce it.

• Rights statement — the free text printed as it is with the work (“© Jeanne Valory, 1978”), the exports’ credit line. It is saved with the record (Save, ⌘S), like the fields of the Identification tab.
• Rights holders and licences — one line per right, as many as needed: two holders sharing the rights, one licence for the press and another for the web. Add rights… opens the editor; Edit… and Delete… are on each line. Each line is saved on its own, at once.

The editor:

• Rights holder and licence — Rights holder (an agent of the directory: the author, their estate, an agency), Licence (All rights reserved, the six Creative Commons 4.0 licences, CC0, Public domain, Other licence or contract, or Licence not stated), Licence terms (another licence, a contract, a version: “CC BY 3.0 FR”, “assignment contract of 12 March 2020”);
• Restrictions and expiry — Reproduction restrictions (what whoever reproduces the work must know: “no cropping or overprinting”, “the estate’s consent required”), Expiry (when the rights end, YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD; the precision follows what you type);
• Internal note, folded — never exported or printed.

A line names at least a rights holder, a licence, restrictions or an expiry; an empty line (or a note alone) is refused. The list shows the licence, its terms, the rights holder (a link to the agent), the restrictions and the expiry; an expiry in the past reads Rights expired. A rights holder still cited cannot be deleted (the refusal says where), and merging two agents carries it over. Deleting a work deletes its rights.

The rights are public: they leave with the work in rights.csv, in LIDO and in CIDOC (see Exporting the catalogue); a confidential work leaves, with its rights, only in a CSV that includes the confidential records. The internal note never leaves.

Relations

The Relations tab says what ties the work to other works of the fonds:

The rank of each state (I, II…) is given in each work’s record, Scholarly notice group: it is never taken from the relation, nor from a suffix or a title, and no Variant becomes an Other state by itself. The data checks flag two linked states at the same rank, and a work linked to other states without a rank.

A relation reads from both records: added on one, it shows at once on the other, with the same word (“Variant”) or, for a preparatory work, the word of the other side (“Preparatory for” on the study, “Preparatory work” on the work it prepared). The number and title of the other work open its record.

• Add a relation… — choose the Relation, search for the Other work by its catalogue no. or title, add a Note on the relation if needed, then Add. A work is not related to itself; the same relation is not recorded twice between two works (a variant from A to B is also the one from B to A); two works don’t prepare each other. Two works can have several relations: same negative and same sitting, for instance.
• Note on the relation — folded under each relation, it is saved when you leave the field. It is a working note: it can be searched, it goes into no export.
• Remove the relation… (the − button) — after confirmation; both works stay in the catalogue, the relation goes from both records.

Suggested common negative. When other works are linked to the same file as this one as a negative, plate, sheet film or transparency (Files tab), the tab offers them at the top, with Add. Nothing is recorded until you add it: the suggestion goes once the Same negative relation is recorded.

Deleting a work deletes its relations, noted in the deletion journal like the rest. A relation with a confidential work carries the Confidential mark: it goes into an export only when the export includes the confidential records.

Gallery. The two buttons next to Add a relation… show the relations as a List or a Gallery. In the gallery, one thumbnail per related work, grouped by type of relation (Related work, Variant, Same sitting…): the other work’s reference image, or “No image”, or “Reproduction excluded” (the image is never shown), as in the works gallery; under it, its catalogue no., with the lock of a confidential work, and its title. Double-click or Return opens the other work’s record; right-click, Remove the relation… (or ⌫) removes it, after confirmation, like the list’s − button. The slider sets the thumbnail size. The choice, List or Gallery, is remembered from one work to the next and from one session to the next.

Relations between their files. Under the relations, this section lists, read-only, the files of this work that the library relates (Relate: RAW + JPEG, derivative, edit, stack, duplicate, other) to files linked to other works of the fonds: the relationship, the other work (no. and title, with the Confidential mark when it is) and both files; in the gallery, the thumbnail of the other work’s file (never when its reproduction is excluded). When the two works are already related, the pair says so (Already related: Variant). Nothing passes from the files to the works by itself: Create the relation between works… asks for the type of relation, pre-filled when the relationship suggests one (a derivative, an edit or a RAW + JPEG suggests Variant, a stack Same sitting, a duplicate or “other” nothing), then Create the relation… asks for confirmation. The relation created then reads from both records, like the others. The pairs are read 100 at a time (Load more).

Files

The Files tab lists the library files linked to the work, each with its role: negative, plate, sheet film, transparency, scan, master, derivative, documentation, installation view.

• Link a file… — search for the file by name, choose its File role, then Link. The first linked file that can be becomes the reference image: a work without a title then takes the image’s, and an image without a title is offered the work’s; a work without a description is offered the image’s (Use the description or Not now).
• File role — the role menu, on each file, changes it in place. The reference image keeps a role that can be one.
• Make reference — a work has exactly one reference image. A “Documentation” or “Installation view” file cannot be one.
• Unlink… — removes the link, after confirmation; neither the work nor the file is deleted.

Gallery. The two buttons to the right of Link a file… show the files as a List or a Gallery. In the gallery, one thumbnail per file, in the list’s order (from the negative to the derivatives): the whole image, never cropped, drawn from the thumbnail the library prepares, never from the original file; under it, the file’s role and name. The reference image carries a star and the words Reference image. A file that can’t be found (disk unplugged, file moved) says “Missing”, as in the library. Double-click or Return opens the file large, with the work’s other files; right-click offers View large, Show in the library, File role, Make reference and Unlink… (also ⌫). The arrow keys move from one thumbnail to the next. The slider sets the thumbnail size; the choice is remembered as for the relations.

Documents

The Documents tab gathers what documents the work:

• Documents of the work: the documents attached to the work itself or to one of its prints — correspondence, an exhibition sheet (loan form, wall label, hanging list), archives (register, inventory, press cutting), an external certificate (issued by an estate, a gallery, an expert: those Catalog issues are in the Certificates section), an invoice, a condition report, or other. They are attached and edited here (see below).
• Documents of the linked files: the documents attached to the work’s files (correspondence, invoice, condition report…; the same kinds as the work’s; see Attached documents), file by file, in the order of the Files tab, read-only: they stay attached to their file (in the library, Edit…).
• Provenance proofs: each provenance event that has a proof, with that proof (document, which opens; citation; archive reference) and the Confidential mark when it is confidential. A proof document that is no longer the work’s or one of its files’ (file unlinked, document deleted) is flagged.

Each document shows its kind, what it is attached to (The work, a print, or the file, which opens its record in the library), its date and reference, the original file name, the size, the SHA-256 fingerprint of the copy, the Confidential mark when it is confidential (its box, or forced: see below) and the provenance events it is the proof of. Open opens it in the default application; Show in Finder shows the copy in the library’s Documents/ folder.

Verified copies. When the tab opens, Catalog checks the copy of each document in the library against the SHA-256 recorded when it was attached. A copy already verified since the app was launched, whose size and date have not changed since, is not read again. Each document then says Copy intact, Copy modified (its content changed) or Copy missing (not found in the Documents/ folder), and the top of the tab sums up the result. Verify the copies reads every copy again. A modified or missing copy is restored from a backup of the library folder, or by attaching the original document again. The inspector of a library file also flags a document whose copy is modified or missing: a missing copy or one of another size at once, a modified copy when you stay on the file for a second.

Attach a document… opens the editor:

• File — Choose a file… (PDF, image, text: any format). Catalog copies it into the library, with its SHA-256 fingerprint, like a document attached to a file; the original is never changed, and the copy goes with the library’s backups;
• Document — the Kind, the Title (the file’s name, to change if needed), Document of (the work, or one of its prints), the document’s Date (YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD) and its Reference (an archive reference, a certificate number);
• Disclosure — the Confidential box, ticked by default for an invoice;
• Internal note, folded — never exported or printed.

Then Attach. Edit… changes everything but the file; Delete… (after confirmation) deletes the document and its copy in the library, never the original; a provenance event it was the proof of keeps its archive reference. Deleting a print or a work deletes its documents; their copies are removed the next time Catalog opens.

Confidentiality. A document of the work leaves with it in exports (see Attached documents), and the catalogue raisonné cites it among the entry’s sources, with its date and its reference (see What the entry prints), unless it is Confidential: by its box, or because it is the proof of a confidential provenance event or the document of a confidential conservation intervention, as long as they are (the box is then ticked and locked). A document attached in the library while the record is open shows when you come back to the tab.

The change history

The Change history group, in the Identification tab between Traceability and Certificates issued, keeps track of what changed in the record, newest first. Each change says:

• its date and its origin: Record (you saved the record, changed its status, edited a print or an attribution), Reference image (the record took its image’s title or description), Batch edit and Batch edit undone (see Batch editing), Series defaults (applied from the record or to a selection), CSV import, CSV import (completion) (see Completing existing works), Agent merge, Print renumbering, Created from files (the work was created by Create works from…, in the library or the Works section; a work created that way before version 0.19 keeps the origin Record);
• what it touches: the Work, a Print (under its number), an Attribution (under its agent’s name);
• for each changed field, its name, the value before and the value after (“Title: Low Tide → High Tide”); the creation of a record, a print or an attribution, or the deletion of a print or an attribution, takes one line (“Print deleted”).

Saving a record without changing anything adds nothing. A change that fails (an inventory number already in use, for example) leaves no trace: the record and its history are written together or not at all. The twenty most recent changes show first; Show older changes shows the next twenty. The group is only read when it opens (collapsed, it costs nothing), then again each time it opens and after each save.

What the history keeps, and what it does not:

• The fields of the record, its prints and its attributions. The other tabs (provenance, sales, conservation, lines of rights, documents, relations, exhibitions, publications, files) are not recorded (the Rights statement, a field of the record, is): their lines already carry their own date, and provenance and conservation their confidential amounts. The values Catalog computes (completeness, the attribution certainty copied onto the record, the publication date) are not recorded either.
• Never the value of a confidential or internal field. A change to a print’s Price, Currency, Current holder or Location, or to the Internal notes of the work or of a print, is noted “changed, value not kept”: the history keeps neither the old nor the new value, not even in the library’s database.
• A long text as an excerpt. For a text longer than 400 characters (a scholarly notice, a description), the history keeps what changed and a few words around it, marked “…” and “(excerpt)”, never the whole text.
• The latest 300 changes of each work (its prints and attributions included). Beyond that, the oldest are deleted, in batches, as you save.
• An agent by its name at the time of the change: an agent merged or renamed since still reads.

The history is never exported: it goes into no CSV, LIDO, CIDOC, full export (including a Vault package’s), report or certificate, whatever the options. It is part of the library: its backups, and so the backup inside a Vault package (backup/), keep it as it is, without any confidential value. It starts with the update that brings it: earlier changes are not in it.

Current limitations: an entry cannot be restored in one click (type the value back by hand); the history can be neither searched nor filtered; its dates are in universal time (UTC), like those of the Traceability group; creating works from files is recorded with the Record origin.

Moving from one record to another

In a record, references lead to their record: the author of an attribution and the parties of a provenance event open the agent (Agents section), an exhibition or a publication opens its record, a file is selected in the Library. The other way round, the works of an exhibition (Works hung), of a publication (Works cited) and of an agent (Related works) open their record.

The toolbar’s Back and Forward buttons (⌘[ and ⌘], also in the Go menu) return to the records visited this way, as in a browser. A record with unsaved changes first asks Save, Don’t Save or Cancel. Choosing a section in the sidebar does not count in this history.

Statuses and publishing

A work goes through five statuses:

The links under the record’s title only offer the allowed moves: Send to review, Back to draft, Validate, Publish, Withdraw.

Publish is refused as long as:

• the work has no accepted attribution in the photographer role (“Anonymous” is one, see Attributions);
• its completeness is below the publication threshold: “This work is 45% complete; publishing requires at least 60%.”

A published work keeps its number and cannot be deleted: withdraw it instead; it stays citable. A withdrawn work cannot be deleted either.

Completeness

Completeness, from 0 to 100%, measures what the record contains. Each criterion met earns points; the weights always add up to 100 (Settings › Catalogue › Completeness weights shows them, read-only):

These are the weights of version 1.0. They changed one last time before it: rights and conservation now count, the description and the print go from 10 to 5 points. On the first launch of the new version, Catalog recomputes every work’s completeness in the background, without changing its modification date; a work published under the former weights stays published, even if its completeness falls below the threshold.

The threshold is still reached with five criteria: title, attribution, date, technique and support, reference image. The description, the longest to write, is not on that path.

The Next link always points at the missing criterion worth the most. It opens the criterion’s tab, puts the cursor in its field and outlines it in orange, like a finding of the checks (see below); a criterion that is a list (prints, provenance, exhibitions, citations, files) outlines the list.

The stored completeness (the one the list, its filter and the publication check read) also follows what changes outside the record: a batch edit, and deleting an exhibition, a publication, a hanging or a citation, recompute the completeness of the works concerned. The recompute at launch never overwrites a record saved while it runs.

Relations, documents, sales, storage locations and print values do not count towards completeness: a work does not always have them, and their absence does not mean a record is incomplete.

Data checks

Completeness says what a record holds; the data checks say what it leaves out or contradicts: a print dated before its work, a signature bearing the name of another agent the work cites, two prints of an edition announcing different edition sizes, a duplicate copy, an inventory number another object of the fonds also carries, a frame smaller than the sheet, two states at the same rank, a work with no inventory number or dimensions… and, for values, location and stocktake, what is confidential. Each finding has a severity: Information (“Lost work”), To check, Inconsistency. The checks change nothing and block nothing: not saving, not publishing, not a report. No finding can be “hidden”: it goes when the record is corrected.

• In the record, the Checks box, under the status, counts the findings by severity (“1 inconsistency · 2 to check”); open, it lists them, the most serious first, each with its facts (“Print 3/8 is dated 1962, before the work’s date (1975).”) and the tab where the fact is corrected. A click on the finding opens that tab on the field to correct: the record scrolls to it, the cursor goes into it, and an orange border surrounds it, which goes as soon as you type or leave the field; nothing is changed. A finding about several fields (“Technique or support missing”) puts the cursor in the first empty one and outlines the others. A finding about a print opens the Prints tab on that print, unfolded; about its values, it outlines the values group, which stays hidden. A finding without a single field to correct (a duplicate inventory no., two copies with the same number, a hanging that does not say which print) outlines the object, without placing the cursor. VoiceOver announces the highlighted field. A confidential finding carries the padlock. The checks are read again when the record opens and after each save, never while you type: a change not saved is not checked yet. A record without findings does not show the box.
• In the list, the With inconsistencies / to check facet keeps only the works with at least one finding to check or one inconsistency (a piece of information alone does not count). It reads the whole fonds, page by page: searching and the other facets keep it as it is, and Refresh (⌘R) reads it again.
• In the table, the Checks column gives the number of findings and the most serious. It does not sort and is not exported.
• Confidential findings (values, location and holder, stocktake) count only where the screen already shows the values: in the table, when a column of values is shown. The list never counts them.
• Before exporting the catalogue raisonné, the Check before export sheet shows the public findings of its works (see Reports).

Deleting a work

Delete…, at the top of the record (or right-click in the list, Delete work…), asks for confirmation, then deletes the record and its change history, with everything attached to it: its attributions, its prints and their values, its editions’ price tiers, the provenance events, exhibition appearances and citations in publications (of the work and of its prints), the conservation interventions, the rights, the documents, the relations with other works and the links to files. The confirmation counts them (“3 prints, 4 provenance events, 2 exhibition appearances, and 1 citation in a publication”). The exhibitions and publications stay, as do the library’s files. The number is never reissued: it stays reserved.

Cannot be deleted: a published or withdrawn work (it stays citable), or a work that an issued certificate covers, for itself or for one of its prints (revoke the certificates first, or withdraw the work).