Launched in 2012, and created in partnership with some of the world’s leading art libraries, the Getty Research Portal is a free online search gateway that aggregates the metadata of art history and cultural texts, with links to fully digitized copies that are free to download. There are no special requirements in order to use this resource, and it is completely open to anyone with internet access.
“When we began this exceptional project we had eight founding institutions, all committed to sharing their digitized collections of rare books, foundational art historical literature, catalogues, periodicals, and other published resources with researchers, without limit or impediment,” says Thomas W. Gaehtgens, director of the GRI. “On our 4th anniversary, we renew that commitment, with an improved user interface, more international partners, and now more than 100,000 volumes available for download. Thousands of people use this tool and our books have been viewed nearly 13 million times. This broad access is fundamental to the GRI’s mission to further the understanding of art and a core principle in our approach to art historical research.”
The re-launched Portal has been rebuilt and redesigned, marking it easier to explore digitized texts on art, architecture, material culture, and related fields from the Getty Research Library and international partners. The new user interface features several key improvements, including: new search filters that make results sortable by criteria such as date and language; a responsive design that allows for better use on phones and tablets; individual pages for each digitized text enabling users to easily share links; prominent display of edition details for books, when available; and new additions from participating libraries are more clearly highlighted.
“The Getty Research Portal aspires to offer a more expansive and global collection than any single art library could provide,” said Kathleen Salomon, assistant director at the GRI. “In just four years, we have seen the Portal grow significantly and internationally, from our original eight partners to currently 21 institutions. Working with them, we provide a trusted resource and a convenient tool for scholars and researchers at all levels and now can claim 70,000 individual visitors.”
Over the past year, the GRI has expanded the Portal project significantly by adding scanning workstations and staff to rapidly scan titles that have been carefully selected for inclusion in the Portal, more than doubling the capacity for digitizing Getty Research Library collections. Additionally, new partners are greatly adding volumes to the Portal.
The newest partners to join the Getty in this effort are the Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, the Menil Library Collection in Houston, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Library and Archives in New York, and the Warburg Institute Library in London. They join the Heidelberg University Library, the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Libraries, the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, the Library of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, the Frick Art Reference Library, the Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives, the New York Art Resources Consortium, the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, the Biblioteca de la Universidad de Málaga, and Gallica: Bibliothèque national de France. Getty partners include the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Publications Virtual Library, and the Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative.
Overseeing this vast expansion of content is Anne Rana, Project Manager. Senior software engineer Joshua Gomez and his team are responsible for the software improvements and ongoing technical support.
The Getty Research Portal can be accessed at the Getty Research Portal.