The materials comprise records created by the Scholarly Coordination, Issues and Policy, Network Initiatives, and Special Projects departments of the Getty Information Institute (GII) and its predecessor, the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), dating 1978-1999 (bulk 1982-1998). The records comprise project files, correspondence, memos, agreements and licenses, articles and reports, meeting and conference materials, status reports, marketing files, histories and planning documentation, and audiovisual materials. These records primarily represent the files of Marilyn Schmitt as manager of Scholarly Coordination, Issues and Policy, and Special Projects, 1983-1998, but do also include the files of her staff as well as the files of Kathleen McDonnell and Jane Sledge as managers of Network Initiatives, 1996-1999.

The Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), predecessor of the Getty Information Institute (GII), was envisioned as early as 1981 with the following goal: to create "a set of linked data banks, some created by the Getty, the rest of diverse international origin, containing the varied types of information used by art historians: bibliographical indexes, biographical indexes, catalogues of works, images of works, and a host of other related data and texts to facilitate the scholar's work, all accessible through simple, unified, and inexpensive means by individual scholars around the world working at personal computers without intermediaries" (AHIP memo, February 1986). In 1984 Nancy Englander (Director of Program Planning and Analysis) presented key elements of the emerging Art History Information Program to the Getty Board of Trustees, including a number of databases. In December 1994, the Getty Art History Information Program was officially founded with nine special projects: Museum Prototype Project, International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA), Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Provenance Index, Architectural Drawings Advisory Group, Census of Antique Art and Architecture Known to the Renaissance, Conway Library Project, and Witt Library Project.

75.2 Linear Feet (99 boxes)

Contact Rights and Reproductions at the Getty Research Institute for copyright information and permission to publish.

The records in accessions 2008.IA.12, 2008.IA.19, 2008.IA.20, and 2008.IA.21, subject to review for permanently closed information, are open to qualified researchers.