J. Paul Getty Trust
College Art Association
Revised 2024 by Emily Benoff
Murtha Baca and Patricia Harping, Editors
Emily Benoff, Digital Content Manager, 2024 Revised
Edition
CDWA is a set of guidelines for the description of art, architecture, and other cultural works. CDWA represents common practice and advises best practice for cataloging, based on surveys and consensus building with the user community. CDWA is arranged in a framework to which existing art information data structures may be mapped and new data modeling may be referenced. CDWA is mapped to other standards in the Metadata Standards Crosswalk. An implementation of CDWA is the Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA). A subset of CDWA is incorporated in Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO), designed for the visual resources community. CDWA advises the use of the Getty Vocabularies.
The CDWA is maintained by the Getty Vocabulary Program. For comments and questions, please write to cdwa@getty.edu.