To fulfill its mandate to preserve institutional memory, the Institutional Archives has developed strategies to provide Getty staff and the scholarly community with appropriate access to historical information while protecting both the institution and the individuals whose activities are documented in its records. The ultimate goal of the Institutional Archives is to provide access to the Trust's inactive records of enduring value on a fair and equitable basis.

General Policy

• All memoranda, letters, reports, and other records intended for public circulation and/or approved for public release are open for research.
• All other records in the Institutional Archives that are more than 20 years old are open to qualified researchers, except as noted below.
• The J. Paul Getty Trust reserves the right to restrict access to any records held by the Institutional Archives.

Exceptions to the 20-Year Restriction Policy The following types of records are closed for longer than 20 years. Contact Library Reference for more information.

• Records of the Board of Trustees meetings and correspondence of trustees, officers, general counsel, and program directors.
• Records that could compromise security or operations.
• Records that contain privileged business information or commercially sensitive information.
• Personal information found within archival records. Records containing this type of information will be restricted from access or redacted before access is granted.
• Legal communications and legal work product.
• Records pertaining to any current litigation, audit, or other investigation.
• Collection management records: records of collection acquisitions and deaccessions, collection loan agreements, and collection insurance records.
• Curatorial object records and collection conservation records.
• All records of the above types, even where located in files of otherwise unrestricted material.

Requesting Access

Requests for access to Institutional Archives holdings may be made by contacting Library Reference.

Use of Institutional Archives collections may be constrained by preservation requirements or intellectual property law. Researchers are generally not permitted to use unprocessed portions of archival collections.

Researchers who are granted access to records will be asked to sign the standard Institutional Archives Access Agreement and abide by the rules of the special collections reading room. Permission to examine records is not an authorization to photocopy or publish them. Permission to photocopy or otherwise reproduce records must be approved by the Institutional Archives staff. Permission to publish any work using records in the Institutional Archives must be obtained in writing from the Institutional Archivist prior to publication. Users may be required to submit relevant portions of their intended publication with their request for permission.