Collection Catalogues

Learn how to publish a collection catalogue with Quire

Learn how to publish a collection catalogue with Quire

Along with monographs, edited volumes, and serial publications, Quire is also designed with the publication of collection catalogues in mind. This can be achieved by setting entry as the layout value in the .md file’s page YAML. For more information see the Page Types & Structure section of this guide. Collection catalogues typically feature a page for each object, images of the object, information about it, and an essay or entry text. To publish a catalogue with Quire, you’ll capture object data, create the object pages, and then, optionally, display a list of the objects included in your publication.

Capture Object Data

Much like figures.yaml or references.yaml, all catalogue object metadata should be captured in a single objects.yaml file in the contents/_data/ directory. Here is a brief sample of an objects.yaml file:

object_display_order:
  - artist
  - year
  - dimensions
  - medium
  - location
object_list:
  - id: "2"
    title: "Impression, *Sunrise*"
    artist: "Claude Monet"
    year: "1872"
    medium: "Oil on canvas"
    dimensions: "48 cm × 63 cm (18.9 in × 24.8 in)"
    location: "Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris"
    link:
    figure:
      - id: "cat2"
  - id: "3"
    title: "Reading (portrait of Edma Morisot)"
    artist: "Berthe Morisot"
    year: "1873"
    medium: "Oil on fabric"
    dimensions: "74.2 x 100.3 x 12 cm (29 3/16 x 39 1/2 x 4 11/16 in.)"
    location: "Cleveland Museum of Art"
    link: http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.89
    download: true
    figure:
      - id: "cat3"
      - id: "cat3a"
      - id: "cat3b"

There are two sections in the objects.yaml file: object_display_order and object_list.

  • Your object_display_order controls the specifics of which attributes included in your object_list should be displayed and in what order. Following the sample above, the attributes included on the pages would be: artist, year, dimensions, medium, and location.

  • The object_list is a list of the objects and their individual metadata attributes. With the exception of a few reserved terms, as noted in the table below, any attributes can be included here. These attributes and the associated values will ultimately display on the entry pages for each object. These attributes can also be renamed based on your publication’s needs. For example, you can use the term maker instead of artist. To pull object images into the entry pages, the ids listed below figure attribute should match the ids in your project’s figures.yaml file.

AttributeDescription
idRequired. Used to reference objects on the entry pages. Only numbers and/or lowercase letters with no spaces or special characters (001, fig-01a, etc).
figureA list of one or more images of an object. Use id values corresponding with ids in your project’s figures.yaml file.
linkA URL link to a page with more/current information on the object. Usually the object in the museum’s online collection pages.

Create Object Pages

Like all other pages in your publication, object pages are created as .md files in your content directory. An entry page can feature any images associated with the object, a table of object information (or tombstone information), and finally an essay or entry text. To create an object entry page, add layout: entry and the object id that corresponds with that entry in your project’s objects.yaml file to the page YAML.

layout: entry
object:
  - id: 1

Entry Presentation

There are two different ways you can format your object entry pages: side-by-side in which the image appears next to the object information or landscape in which the image appears above the object information.

You can determine the format by either adding presentation: side-by-side or presentation: landscape to each entry’s page YAML. Or you can set a default format for all your entry pages in the content/_data/config.yaml by choosing either true or false for the sideBySide attribute.

entryPage:
  sideBySide: true
layout: entry
presentation: side-by-side
An entry page with scrolling entry text to the right side and a fixed-position image viewer to the left. All entry pages can be made to be in the side-by-side configuration by including sidebySide: true in the config.yaml file of the project.

Whatever the presentation, you can further organize the content on the page by using Quire’s {% accordion %} shortcode to wrap the individual parts of the object entry into collapsible sections. Read more in the Accordions chapter of this guide.

An entry page using a series of {% accordion %} shortcodes to give readers quicker access to different sections of the content.

Object Images

You can add more than one image to your object entry page by listing multiple figure ids in your objects.ymal file. Multiple images are displayed as a rotating carousel and are arranged in the order they are listed in the objects.yaml file. If any of the object images have a caption and/or credit, that information will be included as a pop-up window.

If the figure’s download attribute is set to true, a download icon will be included as well.

If the object_list includes a link value, a “View in Collection” button is generated. The text of this button can be customized with the objectLinkText attribute in the project’s content/_data/config.yaml file.

entryPage:
  objectLinkText: View in Collection

Generate Object Lists/Grids

In a collection catalogue, there is typically a visual table of contents for the catalogue entries. To create a page with a list or visual grid of all the object entries, the entries themselves need to be grouped in their own section. In Quire, this means putting them in a subdirectory within the main content directory. Read more about it in the Pages Types & Structure section of this guide.

In the example below, the content directory has a subdirectory called catalogue. Inside the catalogue folder there are three numbered .md files and an index.md file.

📁 catalogue
  📄 index.md
  📄 1.md
  📄 2.md
  📄 3.md

The .md files are the individual object entry pages and the index.md file creates the table of contents that displays all three objects. To populate the table of contents, add layout: table-of-contents and the attribute presentation to the page YAML of the index.md file. Give the presentation attribute one of the following values: brief, list, abstract, or grid. For more information on these different presentation styles, take a look at the Table of Contents & Sidebar Menu section of this guide.

title: Catalogue
layout: table-of-contents
presentation: grid
layout: table-of-contents
presentation: grid
A visual grid version of the table of contents. Displays an image if one is specified in the page YAML or if the page is an object entry page. Table of contents page types can also be used within sections to display the contents of that section, in this case, the Catalogue section.