Dear moderator, This message is being posted to MUSEUM-L, ARLIS-L, ARCHIVES, VRA-L and NINCH. It is a request to post an announcement on your listserve about the release of the much anticipated Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names by the Vocabulary Program of the Getty Information Institute. The announcement is attached below. If there are special submission instructions to your list, or you need to have this file in a different format, or if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Laila Lalami, Ph.D Editor, Vocabulary Program Getty Information Institute 1200 Getty Center Drive Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90049. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Introducing the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names The Getty Information Institute is pleased to announce the release of its latest vocabulary tool, the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN). Described as *an important and promising start in efforts to create a unified source for geographic name information around the globe* the TGN is intended to be a source of geographic names for documenting and retrieving cultural heritage information. For example, geographic names may be used to record the current location of an art object, its place of origin and the sites of an artist's birth, activity and death. The TGN is the product of eight years of research and is based on data provided by several Getty projects. The nearly 900,000 places in the TGN are arranged in a hierarchical structure representing all nations of the modern world. This hierarchy is arranged from broader to narrower context (e.g., continents, nations, states, provinces, cities etc.). The TGN provides vernacular and English names of places, variant names in other languages, and whenever possible, historical names. The record for a place may also contain geographical coordinates, dates, and notes. The TGN is available in three formats: on the Web, as tagged ASCII files, and in relational tables. The Web version is available at http://www.gii.getty.edu/tgn_browser. The relational tables and tagged ASCII files will be available upon request in early 1998. The TGN will be expanded with the addition of new names and historical places. While we continue to collaborate with various Getty contributors, the growth of the TGN depends on our forming partnerships with other institutions interested in contributing their expertise to the development of the resource. If you are interested in becoming a contributor to the TGN, please contact the Getty Information Institute's Vocabulary Program at (310) 440 6364 or send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Comments and questions about the TGN may be sent to [log in to unmask] The Vocabulary Program also plans to host several training sessions on the TGN. If you are interested in training, please e-mail [log in to unmask]