Printroom online
Registration, conservation and digitisation of the Rijksmuseum’s collection of works on paper
The Printroom Online project began in 2007 with the aim of creating a structured registration, conservation and digitisation of all the works in the collection of the Rijksprentenkabinet. The present updating process will not only enable the vast collection of prints, drawings and photographs running to some 700,000 items to be carefully administered but also to be made accessible online for a wider public through the museum’s Rijksstudio service.
Registration
Registration will be made through the Adlib collection management system, and will meet basic registration requirements, such as a unique object number, an object name, a title, the acquisition data and the present location in the reserves. The Rijksmuseum has also decided to supplement this basic information with iconographic and other art-historical and historical data in the form of descriptions and keywords. For that reason the registration team consists solely of historians, art historians and book historians.
Digitisation
The registration and digitisation will comply with applicable legal and international standards. Our digitisation standards are based on the Metamorphoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines lodged with the National Library of the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum is one of a growing number of museums around the world that applies objective guidelines to the photography of objects in the collection. Our photographers are constantly working on the further development of the existing procedures in consultation with partners at home and abroad.
Conservation
The conservation practice within the project is primarily geared to ensuring that the objects can be handled in a safe and responsible way by repairing damage and then by mounting and repacking them. It should be noted that any member of the public can ask to see works on paper in the museum’s collection in the Study Room.
The bulk of the holdings have already been registered and digitised, such as the collections of Dutch prints, print and photograph albums, sketchbooks and stereo photographs. We expect to complete the project in the autumn of 2021.