Getty Art History Information Program

During the 1980s and 1990s the Art History Information Program (AHIP) pioneered research on the informational needs of art historians and was the driving force behind several collaborative projects concerning art-related texts and images that provided unprecedented automation of, digitization of, and access to these types of materials. AHIP was a program developed and overseen by the J. Paul Getty Trust, a cultural and philanthropic organization serving both general audiences and specialized professionals. The Trust is a not-for-profit institution, educational in purpose and character, that focuses on the visual arts in all of their dimensions. As of 2009 the Trust supports and oversees four programs: the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Getty Foundation; the Getty Conservation Institute; and the Getty Research Institute, which, among other things, continues the work begun by AHIP.

AHIP was envisioned as early as 1981 with the following goal: to create "a set of linked data banks, some created by the Getty, the rest of diverse international origin, containing the varied types of information used by art historians -- bibliographical indexes, biographical indexes, catalogues of works, images of works, and a host of other related data and texts to facilitate the scholar's work, all accessible through simple, unified, and inexpensive means by individual scholars around the world working at personal computers without intermediaries" (AHIP memo, February 1986). In 1984 Nancy Englander (then Director of Program Planning and Analysis) presented key elements of the emerging Art History Information Program to the Getty Board of Trustees, including a number of databases. AHIP soon became a program under the J. Paul Getty Trust and a pioneer in databases for the arts and humanities.

In addition to developing electronic resources to serve the scholarly community around the world, AHIP's early work included projects in response to internal needs and requests by the Trust and its programs. Following its inception AHIP began developing a collection management system to meet the needs of the museum registrar and curators. AHIP also began research concerning the configuration of a "scholarly workstation" for researchers at the Getty. The workstation was envisioned as "a single machine that performs many functions -- word processing, publication preparation, database access and manipulation, and image display, all for an affordable price." This project was extremely innovative because some of these functions did not yet exist at the time of the research, and AHIP hoped to make the scholarly workstation a reality by using its various collaborative projects to inform the workstation's development.

Administrative History

During the 1980s and 1990s the Art History Information Program (AHIP) pioneered research on the informational needs of art historians and was the driving force behind several collaborative projects concerning art-related texts and images that provided unprecedented automation of, digitization of, and access to these types of materials. AHIP was a program developed and overseen by the J. Paul Getty Trust, a cultural and philanthropic organization serving both general audiences and specialized professionals. The Trust is a not-for-profit institution, educational in purpose and character, that focuses on the visual arts in all of their dimensions. As of 2009 the Trust supports and oversees four programs: the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Getty Foundation; the Getty Conservation Institute; and the Getty Research Institute, which, among other things, continues the work begun by AHIP.

AHIP was envisioned as early as 1981 with the following goal: to create "a set of linked data banks, some created by the Getty, the rest of diverse international origin, containing the varied types of information used by art historians –- bibliographical indexes, biographical indexes, catalogues of works, images of works, and a host of other related data and texts to facilitate the scholar's work, all accessible through simple, unified, and inexpensive means by individual scholars around the world working at personal computers without intermediaries" (AHIP memo, February 1986). In 1984 Nancy Englander (then Director of Program Planning and Analysis) presented key elements of the emerging Art History Information Program to the Getty Board of Trustees, including a number of databases. AHIP soon became a program under the J. Paul Getty Trust and a pioneer in databases for the arts and humanities.

Dr. Michael Ester served as the first director of AHIP. Under his direction AHIP contributed significantly to the standardization of information in the arts and humanities through some of the projects outlined above. Under Ester's guidance, the Getty conducted studies on the image quality needs of scholars and the use of electronic images and text in the academic environment. After serving AHIP for nearly a decade, Michael Ester left the Getty in September of 1993.

Under its second director, Eleanor Fink, AHIP became increasingly involved in national debates over technology and the "information superhighway." Fink joined AHIP in 1987, was appointed acting director in 1993, and was named director in 1994. AHIP's name was changed to the Getty Information Institute (GII) in 1996 as part of a new identity program instituted by the Trust just prior to occupancy of the new Getty Center. The GII was dissolved in 1999, and many of its functions were absorbed by the Getty Research Institute (GRI).