The following message is being cross-posted to AAT-L, AIA-L,
ARCHIVES, ARLIS-L, CAAH, CIDOC-L, IMAGELIB, MUSEUM-L, and VRA-L;
apologies in advance for any redundant postings that may result.
 
The Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) is pleased to
announce the debut of its home page on the World Wide Web (URL =
http://www.ahip.getty.edu/ahip/home.html).  AHIP, an operating
program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, works to enrich the content
of computer networks by encouraging the collaborative building of
a cultural information infrastructure.  AHIP has established a
web site as part of its effort to show how massive bodies of
cultural information from heterogeneous sources can be gathered,
digitized, stored, processed, and distributed across national and
international boundaries.
 
The AHIP web site offers detailed information about AHIP's
programs, projects, and publications, including descriptions of
AHIP's recent initiatives:  the Imaging Initiative, the Networked
Access Project, the initiative to develop International
Documentation Standards for the Protection of Cultural Objects,
and Categories for the Description of Works of Art.
 
As part of a fifth initiative, called "Intellectual Integration,"
the AHIP web site tests the concept of integrating disparate
information sources into a "virtual database" by allowing
simultaneous access to large datasets -- nearly 300,000 total
records -- from the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and
the International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA).
These data are being made available free of charge for a limited
time as part of AHIP's research into database retrieval.  The web
site will eventually permit searchers to use AHIP controlled
vocabularies (the Union List of Artist Names and the Art &
Architecture Thesaurus) as tools for refining searches within and
among these art-historical databases, as part of AHIP's efforts
to explore enhanced access by means of controlled vocabulary and
structured information protocols.
 
For further information about the AHIP World Wide Web site, or to
respond with comments on our home page, please send e-mail to
[log in to unmask]
 
 
James M. Bower
Project Manager, Director's Office
Getty Art History Information Program