Getty Vocabularies are compiled resources that grow through contributions from Getty projects and other institutions. Contributors to the Getty Vocabularies include museums, libraries, archives, special collections, visual resources collections, bibliographic and other documentation projects, and large translation projects.

Why contribute?
The Getty Vocabularies are recognized as premier resources for indexing and retrieving information about art, architecture, and related disciplines such as art conservation. They contain coreferences and cross references to other resources where topics overlap; however, the Getty Vocabularies are unique in their global coverage of the defined domain, in citing published sources and contributors, in allowing interconnections among historical and current information, in accommodating the sometimes debated and ambiguous nature of art historical information, and in allowing complex relationships within and between Vocabularies. Although each Vocabulary requires a small set of minimum data, the data model allows for rich data that may be exploited for research and discovery. By contributing, institutions benefit from having their data incorporated in the greater whole of these standard Vocabularies, for their own use and for sharing with the broader community for linking, research, and discovery.

How to contribute
Contributions must meet the following criteria: they must be submitted by an authorized contributor; must be within scope of the Vocabulary; must include the minimum information; and must be submitted in the prescribed format, as described below. By contributing data to the Vocabulary, the contributor agrees to their contributed data becoming a permanent part of the Vocabulary, which is made available in several formats, including as Linked Open Data. See the Quick Reference Guide for Contributions. To learn about the scope of accepted contributions, see Scope and Purpose of Getty Vocabularies.

Submitted contributions are subjected to an established review procedure, which will determine if contributions meet the required standards, are in line with the goals and mission of the Getty Vocabulary Program and the Getty Research Institute, and are in a format compatible with processing the data. If accepted, contributions will be prioritized, processed, and published according to internal priorities and timetables.

Standard spreadsheets
Contribution via spreadsheet is currently our preferred method of contribution. Contributors may send data in spreadsheets where each column is a field and each row is a record. Contributed data will be parsed into our prescribed Getty Vocabulary Contribution Spreadsheets (XLSX, 43.2 KB, 7pp). The standard spreadsheet contains the full set of columns available for contributing rich data. However, note that only a small subset of fields is required. See a list of the required fields at Minimum Required Information. Further discussion of required fields and appropriate content are available in the Editorial Guidelines. Please contact us at vocab@getty.edu with questions.

Online contribution form
Contributors with small numbers of records may wish to use the online forms. Contributions to AAT, TGN, and ULAN may be made via the online Web form, where a click-through Letter of Agreement for the terms of contribution are explained. Within the forms, the scope and content of each field is explained via a link to the Editorial Guidelines.

XML contribution format
For large and repeating contributions, contributors may consider our prescribed Getty Vocabulary XML Schemas for Contributions. Schemas for AAT, TGN, and ULAN and schema for CONA are available in zipped files. (IA contributions are made using spreadsheets.) Instructions are contained within the schema, and general information is available in the Editorial Guidelines. If you are considering contributing via the XML format, please contact us at vocab@getty.edu.

Who may contribute
Contributors generally represent institutions or consortia such as museums, archives, special collections, visual resource collections, large national or international translation or cataloging projects, or others who catalog art. However, we welcome individual scholars or projects who wish to contribute, and more and more scholars and other experts are doing so. Institutions, scholars, and other experts wishing to contribute to the vocabularies should consult the Quick Reference Guide for Contributions.

Scope of acceptable contributions
Are your terms or names appropriate for contribution? To learn about the scope of each vocabulary, please read scope of AAT, scope of TGN, scope of ULAN, scope of IA, scope of CONA.

Contributions must comply with the Editorial Guidelines. You may also refer to Brief Rules for Contributors using the online form (PDF, 1.4 MB, 110pp) and Introduction to Contributing to the Getty vocabularies (PDF, 8.7 MB, 139pp).

Guidelines for Multilingual Equivalency Work: For translation projects, please refer to the instructions for Multilingual Equivalency Work.

Turnaround of contributions: The turnaround time for contributions is dependent upon various factors, including how closely the contributor has followed the editorial guidelines and the status of editorial priorities and technical support available at the Getty during a given period. In general, individual contributions entered via the online Web form in a given month will appear when the Web data is refreshed two months later. The turnaround time for large bulk contributions varies, and will be discussed individually with the contributor. If the large contribution is supplied in the prescribed XML format, if all required data is included, and if the contributor has closely followed our editorial rules and consulted with us throughout the process, turnaround time will be much faster than if the Vocabulary Program must edit the incoming records to meet prescribed criteria. A list of records that have been loaded but not yet edited and published is available for contributors via the online contribution site. Contributors may write to vocab@getty.edu for logon information.

Recent contributors: Contributors include the Getty Research Institute Special Collections, Library, Florentine Codex Initiative, and other projects; the Getty Conservation Institute; and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Other recent and major contributors include the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD); Academia Sinica of Taiwan; the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz; the Collaborative Vocabulary of Arts and Architecture, Brazil (CVAA-BR); the Built Works Registry (BWR); National Museum of Women in the Arts; Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna; Israel Museum Jerusalem; Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA); Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (Tobunken); Centro de Documentación de Bienes Patrimoniales, Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural, Ministerio de las Culturas las Artes y el Patrimonio, Santiago, Chile; the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN); Réseau canadien d'information sur le patrimoine; Scientific/Academic Library Network Working Group for AAT (Anet); Belgian Initiative to Broaden the Network for the French Translation of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (BEINFRAT); the Courtauld Institute; Grove Art online; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; Indiana University slide library; the Victoria and Albert Museum; Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome; European Fashion Heritage Association; the Canadian Centre for Architecture; the Frick Art Reference Library; the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art; the National Art Library in London; the Mystic Seaport Museum; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin; the Bunting Visual Resources Library at the University of New Mexico; Snite Museum at University of Notre Dame (Indiana). For a more comprehensive list of contributors, see the List of Contributors.

International Terminology Working Group (ITWG): Regular meetings are held for core members of translation projects and other team members working on LOD and contributions to the Getty vocabularies. For information regarding recent meetings, see ITWG meetings.

Additional Information: a) The Getty Vocabularies in the online display resource is refreshed every month. b) The AAT, TGN, and ULAN data are available with a logon via Web services, where the data is refreshed regularly. c) The data is also available as JSON, RDF, N3/Turtle, and N-Triples under the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) 1.0. d) In addition, the data is currently published as full data sets in XML and relational tables, refreshed throughout the year. For more information about release formats, see Obtain the Getty Vocabularies.

To find out more about contributing to the Getty vocabularies, see the Quick Reference Guide below or send an email to the Vocabulary Program at vocab@getty.edu, Subject: Contributions.

Quick Reference Guide for Contributions

As a first step, please fill in the Data Contribution and License Agreement. For questions, please contact the Getty Vocabulary Program.

Institutions or consortia who wish to contribute will be asked to describe the scope and nature of the proposed contribution. Proposed contributions are authorized by the Getty, based on established criteria for scope, content, and format, and according to availability of resources at Getty.

By contributing data to the vocabulary, the contributor agrees to its contributed data becoming a permanent part of the vocabulary, which is made available in several formats, including as Linked Open Data. The contributor is cited; however, data from multiple contributors may be merged and the Getty maintains final editorial control of all contributed data.

Follow the Editorial Guidelines.

If the contributing institution maintains a database of authority information, the existing local data may be mapped to the contribution format. A preliminary step is often to send a small set of sample data to the Getty.

For all names, terms, and other information in the contributed record, authoritative sources must be cited; for an authorized contributing institution, the institution's own database may be considered appropriate warrant.

Minimum Required Information. Although each vocabulary record may contain dozens of fields of rich information, relationships, and links to other resources, the minimum required information for contribution comprises the following:

AAT: Art & Architecture Thesaurus ®. minimum: term(s), language of term, source of term, scope note. Includes information for generic concepts describing art, architecture, conservation, archaeology, and related disciplines.

ULAN: Union List of Artist Names ®. minimum: name(s), source of name, life dates, nationality, life role. Includes information about people and corporate bodies, identified and anonymous, including artists, architects, patrons, museums, ateliers, sitters, and others.

TGN: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names ®. minimum: name(s), source of name, broader context, place type, coordinates. Includes information about physical features and places defined by administrative boundaries, current and historical, required for indexing art, architecture, archaeology, conservation, and related materials.

CONA: Cultural Objects Name Authority ®. minimum: title(s)/name(s), source of title, creator, work type, date, current location, materials, dimensions, subject. Includes information about physical and conceptual movable works and architecture, items and groups, extant and historical.

IA: Getty Iconography Authority. minimum: name(s)/title(s), source of name, broader context, scope note. Includes information for subjects having proper names, such as iconographical narratives, religious or fictional characters, historical events, names of literary works and performing art.

The minimum number of records for batch contributions is typically 1,000 or more.

In consultation with the Getty team, send the contribution in batches using the Getty-prescribed XML format or prescribed spreadsheets.

For contributions of ten or fewer records, please send the request in an email to vocab@getty.edu.

For contributions numbering dozens or hundreds of records, use the online contribution forms; request a password by writing to vocab@getty.edu.

For translations of the AAT, see Guidelines for Multilingual Equivalency Work.

The Art & Architecture Thesaurus® (AAT), the Union List of Artist Names® (ULAN), the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names® (TGN), the Cultural Objects Name Authority® (CONA), and the Getty Iconography Authority ™ (IA) are made available by the J. Paul Getty Trust under the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) 1.0.


Updated 11 July 2023