For institutions
Built to last longer than any of us.
Museums, foundations and public collections keep things for generations. The Spine is made for that: every loan accounted for, every decision with a name, and an archive that can leave whole, readable without us.
Every loan, in and out.
Works you lend and works you borrow travel the same way: with their insurance, their condition report on departure and on return, their transport, and the artist’s consent when it is needed. At any moment you know what is out, what is in, and which paper is still missing.
Loans, custody, deposits and donations each have their own name and their own papers. Nothing is recorded as if it were a sale.
Nothing moves without a name.
Every change carries who made it and when, with the paper that supports it. Nothing is erased with a single click: it goes to the bin first, and what was sent stays exactly as it was sent.
When a board, an auditor or a ministry asks who approved a loan three years ago, the answer is already there.
Your archive walks out whole.
Whenever you want, The Spine exports the whole archive in open formats that anyone can read without us: every work, person, paper and journey, with the relations between them.
And it reads that archive back. A copy nobody can open is an export, not a backup; this one rebuilds the house with every relation in its place.
If we disappeared tomorrow.
The Spine runs on WordPress, on your own server. The code is there with you, readable, and written with the reason behind each decision, so any competent provider can look after it.
Your records don’t live in a cloud of ours, and nothing in the house depends on our servers to keep working.
Built to be audited.
We don’t claim a house without cracks. We keep a written record of what has been checked and what hasn’t, with dates, and a dossier prepared for the security firm you choose to test it.
The rules that matter most are automatic tests that turn red the day anyone breaks them, and a condition page shows the state of the installation at a glance.
Your data stays in the building.
Works, people, papers and prices live in your own database, on your own server. AI is optional; if you turn it on, no name ever leaves, and its only permission, rewriting a sentence, is printed in your settings. Security and your data.
And if a house you work with uses The Spine.
Your institution gets a desk of its own there, and everyone on your team has their own way in. You all see the same projects, and every signature, upload or message stays under the name of the person who made it.
The works a house proposes for your programme arrive with everything a registrar and a curator need. You ask to borrow a work, or for a quote where it can be sold, from the same page. Each project shows what is missing and from whom, and its papers are signed, uploaded and downloaded in one place.
Your desk needs no instructions: one sentence, one button, and nothing to get lost in.
Everything an institution runs on.
What other software does, The Spine does too, in its own way, and in one place.
- Loans outWith insurance, condition, transport and consent.
- Loans inWhat you borrow, with its agreement and its return date.
- Custody and depositsWorks in your care that aren’t yours, named as such.
- DonationsWith their papers, from the offer to the acceptance.
- Collection recordsEvery work with images, facts, texts and location.
- Condition reportsOn departure and on return, with photographs.
- PeopleArtists, lenders, donors, couriers and insurers, each with their history.
- Exhibitions onlinePublished on your website from the same records.
- HistoryEvery change with its name, its date and its paper.
- Export and restoreThe whole archive out, readable, and back in.
- Condition pageThe state of the installation, at a glance.
- ConnectorsWhat you already use, joined at set-up.
Every institution is installed and set up by hand, with its own people and its own rules. How we set you up.