Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Finding aid for the Getty Art History Information Program Interviews Regarding the Study of Art History, 1986, 1988, 1990
IA20025
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Interviews regarding the study of art history
Date (inclusive): 1986, 1988, 1990
Number: IA20025
Creator/Collector:
Getty Art History Information Program
Physical Description:
2.8 linear feet
(4 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Institutional Records and Archives
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(310) 440-7390
archives@getty.edu
Abstract: The records comprise interviews that were conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) and Brown University's
Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) in 1986 and 1988. The interviews consist of discussions with
experts and researchers in the history of art and architecture. The interviews focus on research concerns and practices in
an effort to determine what types of automated tools and networked resources would enhance scholarly work in the field of
art history. Materials include sound recordings and transcripts.
Request Materials: To access physical and digital materials at the Getty, go to the
library catalog record for this collection and click "Request an Item" or "Connect to digital images." Click here for
general library access policy . See the Administrative Information section of this finding aid for access restrictions specific to the records described
below. Please note, some of the records may be stored off site; advanced notice is required for access to these materials.
Language: Collection material is in
English
During the 1980s and 1990s the Art History Information Program (AHIP) pioneered research on the informational needs of art
historians and was the driving force behind several collaborative projects concerning art-related texts and images that provided
unprecedented automation of, digitization of, and access to these types of materials. AHIP was a program developed and overseen
by the J. Paul Getty Trust, a cultural and philanthropic organization serving both general audiences and specialized professionals.
The Trust is a not-for-profit institution, educational in purpose and character, that focuses on the visual arts in all of
their dimensions. As of 2009 the Trust supports and oversees four programs: the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Getty Foundation;
the Getty Conservation Institute; and the Getty Research Institute, which, among other things, continues the work begun by
AHIP.
AHIP 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 (then 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. AHIP soon became a program under the J. Paul Getty Trust and a pioneer in databases
for the arts and humanities.
Initial projects undertaken by AHIP included:
- The Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA), a bibliographical system that indexed and abstracted art historical literature that was first based at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts and was acquired by the Getty in 1982
- The Avery Index of Architectural Periodicals, a bibliographical system that indexed periodical literature in the history of architecture, was originally based at the Avery Library of Columbia University, and was acquired by AHIP in 1984
- The Museum Prototype, a consortium of eight American museums that began around 1984 and was charged with developing a standard format for cataloging objects (it was abandoned in December, 1986 due to "persistent structural and conceptual problems")
- The Architectural Drawings Advisory Group (ADAG), a consortium of some twelve worldwide repositories of architectural drawings that was based in Washington, D.C. at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Arts and was charged with developing a standard format for cataloging architectural drawings
- The Provenance Index, a database that was designed to trace the custodial history of western European works of art from the late 16th century to the early 20th century by indexing transcriptions of material from auction catalogs and archival inventories (it evolved into the Getty Provenance Index® databases)
- The Witt Library Index, a collaborative venture with the Courtauld Institute (London) that endeavored to electronically link images from the Witt Library with the descriptive information related to each item
- The Census of Antique Art and Architecture Known to the Renaissance, which began in 1946 as a file of text and images in the Warburg Institute of London, was expanded by the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome) in 1982, and whose automation was sponsored by the Getty in 1984
- The Art and Architecture Thesaurus® (AAT), a database of standardized vocabulary that was designed in the 1970s to merge redundant and contradictory subject headings from various controlled vocabularies related to objects and monuments and was acquired by the Getty in 1983
- The Scuola Normale / Getty (SN/G), a database of "automated projects in the history of art worldwide" that was a collaboration with the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy
- The Institute for Research on Information and Scholarship (IRIS), a collaborative project between Brown University and the Getty that investigated the process of art-historical research to determine what aspects of research might be aided by automated tools and resources
Dr. Michael Ester served as the first director of AHIP. Under his direction AHIP contributed significantly to the standardization
of information in the arts and humanities through some of the projects outlined above. Under Ester's guidance, the Getty conducted
studies on the image quality needs of scholars and the use of electronic images and text in the academic environment. After
serving AHIP for nearly a decade, Michael Ester left the Getty in September of 1993.
Under its second director, Eleanor Fink, AHIP became increasingly involved in national debates over technology and the "information
superhighway." Fink joined AHIP in 1987, was appointed acting director in 1993, and was named director in 1994. AHIP's name
was changed to the Getty Information Institute (GII) in 1996 as part of a new identity program instituted by the Trust just
prior to occupancy of the new Getty Center. The GII was dissolved in 1999, and many of its functions were absorbed by the
Getty Research Institute (GRI).
With the exception of materials that have been marked restricted or confidential, the records described in accession 1986.IA.43
are available for use by qualified researchers. The original audiocassettes are restricted. Transcripts are digitized and
accessible online. Where transcripts are not available, the production of use copies is required before access can be granted.
This may add a delay to research requests.
The transcripts described in accession 1991.IA.01 have been digitized and are available online for use by qualified researchers.
The following types of records are permanently closed: records containing personal information, records that compromise security
or operations, legal communications, legal work product, and records related to donors. The J. Paul Getty Trust reserves the
right to restrict access to any records held by the Institutional Archives.
Contact
Rights and Reproductions at the Getty Research Institute for copyright information and permission to publish.
[Cite the item and series (as appropriate)], Interviews with Art Historians, 1986, 1988, 1990, Getty Art History Information
Program. Getty Research Institute, IA20025.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifaia20025
The records described in this finding aid originated in accession numbers 1986.IA.43 and 1991.IA.01, transferred by the Getty
Art History Information Program.
A preliminary inventory of the records was made by Institutional Archives part-time staff prior to 2005. The finding aid was
begun by Sue Luftschein in 2006 and completed by Cyndi Shein in 2009. Transcripts were digitized in 2015 and are available
online. Finding aid updated by Helen Kim in 2015.
The following materials are offered as possible sources of further information on the people, programs, and subjects covered
by the records. The listing is not exhaustive.
Publications
Bakewell, Elizabeth,
William O. Beeman,
Carol McMichael Reese.
Object, image, inquiry: the art historian at work.
Santa Monica, California: Getty Art History Information Program, 1988.
Scope and Content of Collection
The records comprise interviews that were conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) and Brown University's
Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) in 1986 and 1988. The interviews consist of discussions with
experts and researchers in the history of art and architecture. Materials include bound transcripts of the majority of the
interviews as well as some of the original sound recordings.
In 1986 interviews were conducted with art historians as part of a nine-month study that examined research concerns and practices
as a basis for discovering what kinds of automated tools and networked resources would enhance their scholarly work. The study
resulted in the text
Object, image, inquiry: the art historian at work by Elizabeth Bakewell, William O. Beeman, and Carol McMichael Reese (Getty Art History Information Program). Bakewell (Social
Science Research Analyst in the Office of Program Analysis at IRIS), Beeman (Director of the IRIS Office of Program Analysis),
and Marilyn Schmitt (Program Manager in charge of scholarly coordination of art historical projects at AHIP), conducted these
interviews.
The 1988 interviews were conducted with architectural historians as a postscript to the earlier interviews. In contrast to
the more general investigation that characterized the 1986 interviews, the purpose of this second round of interviews was
to examine research practice in a specialized area of art history. The 1988 interviews were conducted by Marilyn Schmitt,
Carol McMichael Reese (Research Consultant, AHIP), and Deborah N. Wilde (Research Associate, AHIP).
These materials are intellectually arranged in two categories: art historians and architectural historians. Within those categories
the materials are arranged alphabetically by the historians' surnames. The audiocassettes are housed separately for preservation
purposes. Digitzed copies of the transcripts are available online.
Art historians--Interviews
Art--Computer network resources
Art--Historiography
Arts--Information technology
Arts--Study and teaching
Transcripts
Bakewell, Elizabeth
Beeman, William O.
Bergdoll, Barry
Brown University. Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship
Castelnuovo, Enrico
Clark, T. J., (Timothy J.)
Connors, Joseph
Cousins, Judith
Fletcher, Jennifer
Forster, Kurt Walter
Gaehtgens, Thomas W., 1940-
Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans), 1909-2001
Holt, Rick K.
Jouffre, Valérie Noëlle
Klotz, Heinrich
Koreny, Fritz
Krauss, Rosalind E.
Krautheimer, Richard, 1897-1994
Murray, Stephen, 1945-
Perrot, Françoise
Preziosi, Donald, 1941-
Reese, Carol McMichael
Rubin, William Stanley
Schmitt, Marilyn
Schulz, Juergen, 1927-
Schwartz, Gary, 1940
Stieber, Nancy
Toker, Franklin
Troy, Nancy J.
Walsh, John, 1937-
Wilde, Deborah N.
Wit, Wim de