Getty Research Institute
A leading research institution for the visual arts and cultural heritage, maintaining authoritative vocabularies and data standards.
The Getty Research Institute, part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is a major center for the study of the visual arts and cultural heritage. Based in Los Angeles, the Getty develops and maintains several of the most widely used controlled vocabularies in the cultural heritage sector, including the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), the Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), and the Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA). These vocabularies serve as essential reference standards for museums, libraries, and archives worldwide.
Standards (4)
Art & Architecture Thesaurus
(AAT)A multilingual thesaurus of over 55,000 concepts for art, architecture, and material culture.
Categories for the Description of Works of Art
(CDWA)A framework of 540 categories for describing works of art, architecture, and material culture.
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
(TGN)Over 2.2 million place names with coordinates and hierarchies for cultural heritage cataloging.
Union List of Artist Names
(ULAN)An authority file of 300,000 artist and architect names maintained by the Getty Research Institute.
