Getty Vocabularies

In most cases, contributions are submitted by external museums, art libraries, archives, bibliographic and documentation projects, visual resources collections, and scholars, as well as from internal Getty cataloging, exhibitions, and publications. Learn more about how to contribute and see the full list of contributors.

Sources in the Getty Vocabularies are carefully chosen and cited. While the Vocabularies indicate record-preferred terms,there is no single "correct" term for a concept. In many vocabulary records, synonyms and variant names refer to the same concept. The term appropriate for that concept in the context of your work may vary. Preferences according to language, part of speech, current and historical usage, usage in sources, and usage by contributors are flagged in each vocabulary record. Choose the term that is most appropriate for your use.

You can control terminology by using the record-preferred term in each record. This default term is analogous to an authorized heading in bibliographic cataloging. The record-preferred term appears in the results list and at the top of the names of a full record display. This is the name or plural noun most often used for the concept in scholarly literature in the English language.

Sources differ for various data elements or various topics, but typically include scholarly articles and books, repository usage, standard general reference resources such as encyclopedia or dictionaries, and other standards-based, credible sources.

Additional sources may include original archival documents, oral histories, or signatures and inscriptions on art objects. Common usage among source communities and domain professionals is also warrant for inclusion of a term. See Editorial Guidelines for recommended sources.