CONTENTS

Preface
Purpose of These Guidelines
Purpose of the ULAN
Focus
Use
Contributors

1 ABOUT THE UNION LIST OF ARTIST NAMES (ULAN)

1.1 GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ULAN
    1.1.1 Scope and Structure
    1.1.2 What is a Thesaurus?
    1.1.3 What is an Artist?

1.2 EDITORIAL CONTROL
    1.2.1 Review process
    1.2.2 Does contributors' data follow editorial rules?

1.3 RELEASING THE DATA
    1.3.1 Web browsers
    1.3.2 Licensed files

1.4 VOCABULARY COORDINATION SYSTEM (VCS)
    1.4.1 Database
    1.4.2 Merged Records
    1.4.3 Operating VCS


2 GENERAL GUIDELINES

2.1 GENERAL INFORMATION
    2.1.1 Following the rules
    2.1.2 Required fields and minimal records
    2.1.3 Format and values
    2.1.4 Capitalization and abbreviation
    2.1.5 Language of the Record
    2.1.6 Production goals
    2.1.7 Leaving unfinished records overnight
    2.1.8 Quality control
    2.1.9 Avoid plagiarism
    2.1.10 Uncertainty and ambiguity in display fields
    2.1.11 Uncertainty and ambiguity in indexing fields
    2.1.12 Uncertain identification of an artist

2.2 MERGING RECORDS
    2.2.1 Rules for merging
    2.2.2 Procedures for merging

2.3 MOVING RECORDS
    2.3.1 Rules for moving
    2.3.2 Procedures for moving

2.4 SAMPLE RECORDS
    2.4.1 Sample ULAN record
    2.4.2 Sample ULAN record in VCS

2.5 LIST OF FIELDS
    2.5.1 About the fields
    2.5.2 List of VCS Fields


3 EDITORIAL RULES

3.1 HIERARCHICAL RELATIONSHIPS
    3.1.1 Parents (required)
    3.1.2 Sort Order
    3.1.3 Historical Flag: Current or Historical parents
    3.1.4 Dates for relationship to parents
    3.1.5 Parent String

3.2 IDENTIFYING NUMBERS, STATUS FLAGS, AND SUBJECT SOURCES
    3.2.1 Subject ID (required-default)
    3.2.2 Parent Key (required)
    3.2.3 Merged Status (required-default)
    3.2.4 Published Status (required-default)
    3.2.5 Review Status (required-default)
    3.2.6 Record Type (required-default)
    3.2.7 Candidate Status (required-default)
    3.2.8 Label (required-default)
    3.2.9 Contributors for the Subject Record (required)
    3.2.10 Sources for the Subject Record (required)

3.3 NAMES
    3.3.1 Term ID (required default)
    3.3.2 Name (required)
    3.3.3 Preferred Flag (required-default)
    3.3.4 Qualifier
    3.3.5 Sequence Number (required-default)
    3.3.6 Historical Flag (required-default)
    3.3.7 Term Type (required-default)
    3.3.8 Vernacular Flag (required-default)
    3.3.9 Language for Names
    3.3.10 Preferred Flag for Language
    3.3.11 Contributor for Name (required-default)
    3.3.12 Preferred Flag for Contributor (required-default)
    3.3.13 Sources for Names (required)
    3.3.14 Page Number for Name Source (required)
    3.3.15 Preferred Flag for Source (required-default)
    3.3.16 Dates for Names
    3.3.17 Display Name Flag (required-default)
    3.3.18 AACR Flag (LC heading)
    3.3.19 Other Flags
    3.3.20 Assigned To

3.4 DESCRIPTIVE NOTE
    3.4.1 Descriptive Note
    3.4.2 Sources for the Descriptive Note
    3.4.3 Contributor for the Descriptive Note

3.5 ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
    3.5.1 Related People and Corporate Bodies
    3.5.2 Relationship Type
    3.5.3 Historical Flag
    3.5.4 Dates for Related People and Corporate Bodies

3.6 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
    3.6.1 Display Biography
    3.6.2 Nationality (required)
    3.6.3 Preferred Flag for Nationality (required-default)
    3.6.4 Sequence Number for Nationality (required-default)
    3.6.5 Role (required)
    3.6.6 Preferred Flag (required-default)
    3.6.7 Sequence Number (required-default)
    3.6.8 Historical Flag (required-default)
    3.6.9 Dates for Roles
    3.6.10 Birth and Death Dates (required)
    3.6.11 Birth and Death Places
    3.6.12 Sex (required)
    3.6.13 Preferred Flag for Biography (required-default)
    3.6.14 Contributor for Biography (required)

3.7 EVENTS
    3.7.1 Event Type
    3.7.2 Preferred Flag for Event
    3.7.3 Sequence Number
    3.7.4 Event Place
    3.7.5 Dates for Events

3.8 ADMINISTRATIVE FLAGS, NOTES, AND REVISION HISTORY
    3.8.1 Comment Flag
    3.8.2 Problem flag
    3.8.3 Assigned To
    3.8.4 Special Project
    3.8.5 Facet Code
    3.8.6 Legacy ID
    3.8.7 Class Notation
    3.8.8 Image
    3.8.9 Index Note
    3.8.10 Not Found Note
    3.8.11 Status Note
    3.8.12 Editor Note
    3.8.13 Revision History

4.1 APPENDIX A: DIACRITICS
    4.1.1 How to Use Diacritical Codes
    4.1.2 Diacritical Codes: Quick Reference
    4.1.3 Diacritical Codes: Full List

4.2 APPENDIX B: DATES
    4.2.1 How to Record Dates
    4.2.2 How to Use the Date Authority
    4.2.3 Date Authority

4.3 APPENDIX C: SOURCES
    4.3.1 How to Record Sources
    4.3.2 Rules for Sources
    4.3.3 Merging Sources

4.4 APPENDIX D: CONTRIBUTORS
    4.4.1 How to Record Contributors

4.5 APPENDIX E: LANGUAGES
    4.5.1 How to Record Languages
    4.5.2 List of Languages

4.6 APPENDIX F: ROLES
    4.6.1 How to Record Roles
    4.6.2 Roles List

4.7 APPENDIX G: NATIONALITIES AND PLACES
    4.7.1 How to Record Nationalities
    4.7.2 Nationality List
    4.7.3 How to Record Places

5.0 ADDENDUM Z: DATA DICTIONARY

UNION LIST OF ARTIST NAMES: EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

compiled and edited by
Patricia Harpring, managing editor

the Getty Vocabulary Program
Antonio Beecroft, editor
Robin Johnson, editor
Jonathan Ward, editor
Ming Chen, editor

Revised: 24 June 2004; 18 July 2005;
28 March 2006; 12 November 2008;
2 February 2009

PREFACE

This document contains information about editorial practice for the Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)®, one of the vocabularies produced by the Getty Vocabulary Program. The other two vocabularies are the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)® and the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)®. NOTE: The guidelines in this document are subject to frequent modification and addition.

Purpose of these guidelines
This document contains rules and guidelines intended for use by the editors of the Getty Vocabulary Program using the in-house editorial system, VCS (Vocabulary Coordination System). Contributors to the Getty Vocabularies and implementers of the licensed vocabulary data may consult these guidelines as well. However, contributors and implementers should keep in mind that they must extrapolate information and guidance appropriate for their own needs and uses.

Purpose of the ULAN
The ULAN, AAT, and TGN are structured vocabularies that can be used to improve access to information about art, architecture, and material culture.

• They may be used as data value standards at the point of documentation or cataloging. In this context, they may be used as a controlled vocabulary or authority. They provide preferred terms (or descriptors) for concepts, as well as other synonyms that could be used by the cataloger or indexer. They also provide structure and classification schemes that can aid in documentation.
  
  
• They may be used as search assistants in database retrieval systems, taking advantage of the semantic networks of links and paths between concepts; these relationships can make retrieval more successful.
  
  
• They may be utilized as research tools, valuable because of the rich information and contextual knowledge that they contain.

Focus
The focus of each of the Getty vocabularies is art, architecture, and material culture. The vocabularies provide terminology and other information about the objects, concepts, artists, and places important to various disciplines that specialize in these subjects. The primary users of the Getty vocabularies include museums, art libraries, archives, visual resource collection catalogers, bibliographic projects concerned with art, researchers in art and art history, and the information specialists who are dealing with the needs of these users. In addition, a significant number of users of the Getty vocabularies are students and members of the general public.

Use
The Getty Vocabularies are copyrighted: Copyright © 2005 J. Paul Getty Trust. All rights reserved. The ULAN and the other Getty vocabularies are made available via the Web to support limited research and cataloging efforts (see http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/). Companies and institutions interested in regular or extensive use of the vocabularies should explore licensing options by contacting the Vocabulary Program (vocab@getty.edu). The licensed data is available in three formats: XML, Relational Tables, and MARC.

Contributors
ULAN is a compiled resource; it is not comprehensive. It grows over time to become gradually more comprehensive, to reflect changes in artists' biographies, and to accommodate new research in art history. The ULAN grows through contributions. Information in the ULAN is compiled by the Getty Vocabulary Program in collaboration with many institutions. Institutions interested in becoming contributors to the ULAN should write to vocab@getty.edu, explaining the scope of their collections and likely contributions.

the Getty Vocabulary Program
vocab@getty.edu

Getty Vocabulary Program
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049

1

ABOUT THE UNION LIST OF ARTIST NAMES (ULAN)

1.1

General Information about ULAN

1.1.1

Scope and Structure

1.1.1.1

Scope of the ULAN
The ULAN is a structured vocabulary currently containing around 293,000 names and other information about artists. Names in ULAN may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names). Among these names, one is flagged as the preferred name. ULAN includes records for individual artists, rulers and other patrons, architectural firms and other groups of artists working together, and repositories of art works.

1.1.1.2

Structure of the data
The focus of each ULAN record is an artist. Currently there are around 120,000 artists in the ULAN. In the database, each artist record (also called a subject in this manual) is identified by a unique numeric ID. Linked to each artist record are names, related artists, sources for the data, and notes. The temporal coverage of the ULAN ranges from Antiquity to the present and the geographic scope is global.

• Even though the structure is relatively flat, the ULAN is constructed as a hierarchical database; its trees branch from a root called Top of the ULAN hierarchies (Subject_ID: 500000001); it currently has two published facets: Person and Corporate Body. Entities in the Person facet typically have no children. Entities in the Corporate Body facet may branch into trees. (Additional facets are reserved for contributed candidate records.) There may be multiple broader contexts, making the ULAN structure polyhierarchical. In addition to the hierarchical relationships, the ULAN also has equivalent and associative relationships; it thus has the structure of a thesaurus, in compliance with ISO and NISO standards.

• Unpublished facets in ULAN are used for candidate records. Unpublished facets and hierarchies are designated by the "name" temp.parent (e.g., temp.parent/candidate records).

1.1.2

What is a Thesaurus?

• The ULAN is a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a semantic network of unique concepts, including relationships between synonyms, broader and narrower (parent/child) contexts, and other related concepts. Thesauri allow three types of relationships: equivalence (synonym), hierarchical (whole/part or genus/species), and associative. Thesauri may be monolingual or multilingual. Most fields in ULAN records are written in English. While the ULAN is not fully multilingual strictly speaking, the structure of the ULAN supports multilinguality insofar as names and descriptive notes may be written and flagged in multiple languages. Thesauri are used to ensure consistency in indexing and to facilitate the retrieval of information.

1.1.2.1

Relationships
Thesauri may have the following three relationships:

1.1.2.1.1

Equivalence relationships
The relationships between synonymous terms or names for the same person or corporate body, typically distinguishing preferred names (descriptors) and non-preferred names (variants).

1.1.2.1.2

Associative relationships
The relationships between concepts that are closely related conceptually, but the relationship is not hierarchical because it is not whole/part or genus/species (e.g., student/teacher relationships).

1.1.2.1.3

Hierarchical relationships
Broader and narrower (parent/child) relationships between concepts. Hierarchical relationships are generally either whole/part or genus/species; in the ULAN, there may be whole/part relationships between corporate bodies (e.g., between a firm and its divisions). Relationships may be polyhierarchical, meaning that each child may be linked to multiple parents.

1.1.3

What is an Artist?

• In the context of the ULAN, an artist is any person or group of persons who creates art. The definition hinges upon the sometimes nebulous, often controversial, constantly changing definition of art. For ULAN, artists represent creators who have been involved in the design or production of architecture or visual arts that are of the type collected by art museums. Note that these are works of visual art of the type collected by art museums. The objects themselves may actually be held by an ethnographic, anthropological, or other museum, or owned by a private collector.
  
  
• ULAN may include artists as well as people and corporate body closely related to artists. Museums and other repositories of art are included as well.

1.1.3.1

Persons
Persons include individuals whose biographies are well known (e.g., Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch painter and printmaker, 1606-1669)) as well as anonymous creators with identified oeuvres but whose names are unknown and whose biography is estimated or surmised (e.g., Master of Alkmaar (North Netherlandish painter, active ca. 1490-ca. 1510)). The types of artists included in ULAN is represented in the examples of their roles below.

• Examples

1.1.3.2

Corporate Bodies
A corporate body may be a legally incorporated entity, such as a modern architectural firm or museum, but it is not necessarily legally incorporated; for example, a 16th-century sculptors' studio or a family of artists may be recorded as a corporate body.

• A corporate body must be an organized, identifiable group of individuals working together in a particular place and within a defined period of time. Examples of roles of corporate bodies are listed below.
  
  
  • Examples

1.1.3.3

Workshops and families
A workshop may be included if the workshop itself is a distinct "personality" collectively responsible for the creation of art (for example, the 13th-century group of French illuminators, Soissons atelier). Generic attributions to studios or workshops are outside the scope of ULAN. For example, when a painting is attributed to some unknown hand in the workshop of a known artist (e.g., as might be expressed in an object record as workshop of Raffaello Sanzio), this is outside the scope of ULAN. ^[1]Families of artists may be included as corporate bodies.

1.1.3.4

Anonymous artists
Anonymous artists are within the scope of ULAN if the hand of the anonymous artist has been identified. In such cases, it is common for scholars or a museum to have created an identity for him or her (e.g., Monogrammist A. C. or Master of the Aeneid Legend).

• On the other hand, designations for unidentified artistic personalities with unestablished oeuvres may not be recorded in ULAN (e.g., 16th-century Italian is outside the scope of ULAN).
  

1.1.3.5

Amateur artists
Amateur artists may be included in the ULAN if their work is of the type and caliber typically collected by art museums and if their work has been documented by an authoritative source or reviewed in a published source. A criterion for inclusion is the availability of information for all the required ULAN fields, including a published source (which may be an entry in a museum catalog).

1.1.3.6

Non-artists
ULAN may also include individuals and corporate bodies who are directly associated with an artist recorded in the ULAN, and who are thus important to the artist's record. Examples of persons include teachers, patrons, famous spouses, or other family members. Examples of corporate bodies include associated firms, art academies, museums, and other repositories of art.

1.1.3.7

What is excluded from ULAN?
ULAN may include painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, and a host of other creators. Excluded are professionals who may play one of these roles, but whose products are not considered "art." For example, a portrait painter is an artist, but a house painter is not. Photographers who create still photographs of landscapes, portraits, still lifes, or abstract compositions of the caliber of "art" are artists, but photographers producing forensic photographs or military photographs are generally outside the scope of ULAN. Likewise, an engineer involved in the artistic process of designing architecture is included in ULAN; but engineers who design diesel engines and biomedical engineers are outside the scope of ULAN.

• Note that the nature of a designated role may be typically artistic in one period, but not in another. A medieval mason was often involved in the creative design process, while a modern bricklayer generally is not. A cabinetmaker in the court of Louis XVI was probably producing high quality furnishings considered "art," while the work of a modern craftsman who remodels your kitchen is probably is not considered "art."
  
  
• Creators outside the scope of ULAN include those who create in media not typically collected by art museums. For example, still photographers are included in ULAN, but most cinematographers are generally outside the scope of ULAN. Authors, choreographers, directors of plays and movies, composers of music, dancers, musicians, singers, and actors are outside the scope of ULAN. However, a creator may be included in ULAN even if his primary or most famous life role was not that of an artist. For example, Thomas Jefferson is best known as a founding father and president of the United States, but he was also an influential architect (i.e., artist). Conversely, history remembers Leonardo da Vinci primarily as a painter and draftsman (i.e., artist), but in his own time he generally considered his role as military engineer one of his most important activities.
  

1.2

Editorial control

1.2.1

Review process

• Records are created and edited by the Vocabulary Program editors and trained, established contributors, following the Editorial Rules laid out in this manual.
  
  
• As time permits, the Vocabulary Program reviews individual records from contributors before they are released in the ULAN. All contributions are checked, but with less supervision required for trained, established contributors.
  
  
• Vocabulary Program (VP) editors follow strict rules when adding new records to the ULAN. VP editors edit the contributors' records to comply with VP policy and practice; however, given the large number of records in the ULAN, editors do not have the time or resources to edit every record. An editorial goal is to have uniform and homogeneous records throughout the ULAN, but employing flexible standards for contributors' data means that the ULAN database as whole is not entirely consistent or totally uniform.
  
  
• The VP collects new issues that arise during the course of accepting contributions and editing the ULAN. The resolutions of these issues are periodically transferred to an updated version of the manual.
  

1.2.2

Does contributors' data follow editorial rules?

• The Vocabulary Program communicates with and trains potential contributors, to assure that 1) the incoming data will be within the scope of the ULAN, and 2) the incoming data will be in appropriate format and generally consistent with the ULAN standards.
  
  
• Given that the ULAN is compiled from various contributors' automated records, it is necessary to allow "flexible standards" in order to accept contributions from a wide variety of institutions with established, diverse practice. Compliance with the critical standards regarding technical rules, structure, content, and editorial guidelines are required; however, certain other content and editorial guidelines are considered non-critical and are therefore not strictly enforced for some contributors. For example, it is critical that all records are in a format that can be imported into the ULAN and include the required fields. It is also critical that the required fields are indexed or formatted in a way that will allow retrieval. However, it is not critical that the preferred name in a non-Roman alphabet be transliterated using an ISO standard (although this is highly recommended) or that the descriptive note be phrased according to our uniform style (although this is recommended too).
  

1.3

Releasing the Data

1.3.1

Web browsers

• Data is released to the online Web versions of the ULAN, AAT, and TGN monthly, on or near the first of the month. Data for the release is taken during the third or fourth week of the preceding month.
  

1.3.2

Licensed files

• Data in formats available for licensing is released annually in June. The data is released in three formats: relational tables, XML, and MARC. ULAN editors clean the data as well as possible prior to each annual release.
  

1.4

Vocabulary Coordination System (VCS)

• VCS is the editorial system used to house and edit the three Getty Vocabularies. Each vocabulary is stored in a separate iteration of VCS. References to "the system" refer to VCS. References made to "fields" refer to data elements in VCS. References to a "record" or "subject record" refer to an intellectual record comprising all the data linked to a given Subject ID in the data structure.
  

1.4.1

Database

• VCS uses a relational database; the database models for each of the three vocabularies are identical in most ways, differing only where necessary. See Addendum Z: Data Dictionary for further information.
  

1.4.2

Merged Records

• The ULAN is compiled from artist names and biographic information that has been collected by the Getty and other institutions. When multiple contributors have submitted information about the same artist, all the names and information about this artist should be merged into a single record ("merge" is a function of the VCS editorial system).
  

1.4.3

Operating VCS

• The chapters in this manual contain definitions of the fields, suggested values, sources where the values may be found, and rules for entering the data where relevant. The fields are presented roughly in the order in which they are found in VCS.
  
  
• While there is some mention of the functionality of VCS in this manual, detailed instructions for the system are not included here. Instructions regarding how to use VCS are provided during training.
  

^[1] In such cases, "workshop of" is more properly a qualifier for the attribution to Raffaello Sanzio in an object record. See Categories for the Description of Works of Art at http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/cdwa/ or Cataloging Cultural Objects at http://www.vraweb.org/CCOweb/.

Last updated 2 February 2009
Document is subject to frequent revisions