The venerable Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) has just been released in a Linked Open Data format. The Getty AAT was developed starting in the late 1970s for the art library and art journal indexing community. Since then it has undergone periodic revisions, and is well regarded in the controlled vocabulary community.

The three other Getty vocabularies (Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA)) are being developed into linked open data formats as well. A quick glance at the “new” AAT shows that it was undertaken with the same care and regard for the subject material for which the Getty vocabularies have been known for some three-plus decades.

Linked data, along with taxonomies and controlled vocabularies, is becoming mainstream for organizations. Publishers are embracing the need for control over ever-growing collections.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.