A four part series on Medium, “Cataloging History,” on the history and practice of museum catalogs, focusing on the publications of the 1853 New York Crystal Palace fair:

Part 1: A brief history of American museum catalogs to 1860

Part 2: The New York Crystal Palace Catalogs

Part 3: Catalog as Book, File, and Database

And coming soon! Part 4, on what we can learn from analyzing the catalog as database.

 

Why Medium for these? I’m experimenting with heavily illustrated essays, and Medium makes these easy, and pretty. My essays often start as an illustrated talk. Paste the images into Medium, rewrite the notes, and the end result is an illustrated essay that seems particularly useful for museum topics.