The Williams College Museum of Art Collection Database is a large spreadsheet that contains all the acquisitions made by the museum. The dataset contains over thirty-six thousand pieces each with thirty-nine features. The file contains data in the form of listings of art. Each individual row of in the spreadsheet constitutes one datapoint in the file. Metadata or “the data about the data” is present when we examine the shape of the dataset. The dimensions of the set, the number of columns and rows, are all metadata. Additionally, the specific criteria for each column also are examples of metadata. For example, the value “Textile” at C, 163 is an example of data and the column “title” is metadata.
The three things I would include on a datasheet for this dataset are what was missing from the dataset, a description of the college’s ethical standards when it comes to acquiring pieces, and a conformation that the entity on the other side of the transaction consented to being listed in a public dataset. The first criteria is important as there is important information missing such as the provenance of the pieces beyond the final donor or vendor. the chain of custody for art especially from the global south is important for promoting an ethical collection. The second criteria, is key because it gives an understanding of how the college goes about building its collection. However, to do this provenance tracking would likely have to be undertaken. Lastly, whenever data is being made public its essential that all those implicated in the data consent to its publishing. If a donor or vendor refuses to list their name and the college still wishes to acquire their art then the missing data section should include the fact that some acquisitions are not listed.
As I already mentioned, the looting and smuggling of art from the global south to the west is a very real issue in the art world. Because of this, collections must take on the responsibility of discovering the chain of custody of their pieces and publishing that data in order to assure the public. The Williams College Art museum should invest in Provenance research or conduct it itself and attach a full chain of custody to its previous, current, and future acquisitions.
