Patricia Harpring
Series edited by Murtha Baca

This primer on the characteristics, scope, uses, and methods for building and maintaining controlled vocabularies for art and cultural materials explains how vocabularies should be integrated in cataloging systems; utilized for indexing and retrieval; and structured to group synonyms and arrange concepts into categories.

The updated edition reflects recent developments in the field, including new national and international standards, current trends such as Linked Open Data, and revisions to the Getty vocabularies. The glossary and bibliography have also been updated.

Patricia Harpring is managing editor of the Getty Vocabulary Program, where she supervises contributions and editorial work for the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), and Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA). Murtha Baca is head of Digital Art History at the Getty Research Institute. Her publications include Cataloging Cultural Objects: A Guide to Describing Cultural Works and Their Images (2006) and Introduction to Metadata(Getty Publications, 2008).