Facilitating Art-Historical Research in the Digital Age: The Getty Research Portal

Abstract

In the past five years, the concept of art‐historical bibliography has undergone critical scrutiny in response to evolving research methodologies and newly available technologies. Concerns about the state of the field provided the catalyst for the Future of Art Bibliography (FAB) initiative, a series of international conversations among art historians, librarians, publishers, and technologists. The ensuing complementary and collaborative initiatives have the shared goal of making art‐historical literature in its many formats accessible to scholars worldwide, thereby facilitating research and encouraging a new kind of scholarly engagement with the materials. The Getty Research Institute, in collaboration with four international advisory institutions, led a project to create an online search platform that would unify and provide global access to digitized art history books and journals, including fundamental texts, rare books, exhibition catalogues, auction sales catalogues, and related literature. Launched in spring 2012, the Getty Research Portal, is a trusted destination for researchers worldwide and a tool to assist librarians in planning future digitization projects.