----------------------------Original message----------------------------
ARLIS-L,
Please accept our invitation to attend a reception on Friday
April 26, 1996 from 4:30-6:00pm in the Oceanview Room, Doral
Ocean Beach Resort (lobby level) in celebration of the new
Getty AHIP/RLG partnership! All ARLIS/NA attendees are invited
so come and bring your friends!
Carol A. Hughes, Research Libraries Group, Inc.
Joseph Busch, Getty Art History Information Program
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RLG JOINS FORCES WITH GETTY AHIP TO
IMPROVE ART INFORMATION ACCESS AND DEVELOPMENT
March 29, 1996--The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG), and the
Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) have embarked on a
partnership that combines RLG's network infrastructure with AHIP's
art research databases to foster broader information access and
contribution by the international cultural heritage community.
AHIP initiatives have produced the Bibliography of the History of Art
(BHA)--the world's most comprehensive art-historical bibliography
database; the Provenance Index--several files on the history of
collecting and the provenance of individual works of art; and databases
addressing the need for coordinated vocabulary and information for
cultural heritage documentation--including the Union List of Artist
Names (ULAN) and Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN).
RLG's president, James Michalko, observes: "RLG has conducted a series
of collaborative projects with major art and other research libraries
based on our capacity to convene working groups, develop solutions, and
deliver online services. With AHIP, we are now poised to implement a
comparable model with the museum and cultural heritage community. Our
strengths complement each other."
"With the growing role of the Internet," says Eleanor Fink, director of
the Getty Art History Information Program, "the vision of enabling the
art information community to increase and maintain research and
vocabulary databases becomes a reality. RLG is an ideal partner in such
a program. Their infrastructure can help us not only to reach new
audiences, but also help us to engage the cultural heritage community in
building the resources that are most essential for its documentation
needs."
Maxwell L. Anderson, director of the Art Gallery of Ontario and chair of
the Association of Art Museum Directors' Information Technology
Committee, agrees: "The collaboration of RLG and AHIP will bring us far
closer to making electronic interchange an indispensible part of museum
operations, leading to new forms of research, communication, and
publication."
Over the next year, RLG-AHIP working groups will plan and implement
three key pilot projects under the new agreement:
o BHA: Add the Bibliography of the History of Art to the set of RLG
CitaDel (citations access and delivery) files--including
information from BHA's predecessors, RILA (International Repertory
of the Literature of Art) and the French RAA (Repertoire d'Art et
d'Archeologie). Devise a method for contribution to BHA based on RLG
models, involving RLG members--the Art and Architecture Group.
o Provenance: Develop a plan for adding the Provenance Index
files to RLG's RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network) and
develop mechanisms to support contributions of data by European
members of AHIP's Provenance Documentation Collaborative.
o Vocabulary: Resolve issues of vocabulary and authority file
coordination across AHIP and RLG, with input from prospective users
and contributors to a future vocabulary resource on RLIN.
RLG already makes significant AHIP resources available online to scholars
and the institutions that serve them. The Avery Index to Architectural
Periodicals, originating from Columbia University's Avery Library, is an
RLG CitaDel file. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) is available
as an RLIN authority file.
Andrew Roberts, documentation officer, Museum of London, and former
chair of the International Committee for Documentation of the
International Council of Museums, hails the value of the RLG-AHIP
partnership to collections and museums worldwide. "In my own museum,
we see great advantages in using resources such as AAT, ULAN, and TGN as
the basis for access within individual institutions and across the
networked cultural heritage community. As we move from an emphasis on
sheer database development to a focus on information access, the design
of an RLIN vocabulary resource will be particularly valuable."
Other projects underway will amplify the potential of the RLG-AHIP work.
Among these is RLG's plan to add a user-friendly World Wide Web
searching interface for its databases. Currently, these can be accessed
through a system designed for librarians and archivists; a
"user-friendly" general search interface; and a system-to-system
connection that allows users to apply their familiar local system
commands to retrieve RLG information.
* * *
Both organizations have home pages on the World Wide Web:
RLG -- http://www.rlg.org
AHIP -- http://www.ahip.getty.edu
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