[PADG:1654] Free Access to AATA Online

["Jackie Zak" <JZak@xxxxxxxxx>]

The following is posted on behalf of Luke Gilliland-Swetland, 
Head of Information Resources, The Getty Conservation 
Institute.  Please re-post to other listservs as appropriate. 
Any questions or comments should be forwarded to the AATA 
office at aata@xxxxxxxxxx

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ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY TECHNICAL ABSTRACTS (AATA) 
TO BE AVAILABLE AS A FREE ONLINE RESOURCE

The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), in association 
with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic
and Artistic Works (IIC), is bringing Art and Archaeology 
Technical Abstracts to the World Wide Web as a free 
service to the international conservation community. When 
it is publicly launched on June 8, 2002, AATA Online: Abstracts
of International Conservation Literature (www.getty.edu/conservation) 
will offer all 36 volumes of Art and Archaeology Technical 
Abstracts and its predecessor, IIC Abstracts, published between
1955 and the present. By year end, abstracts from the 20 AATA
special supplements and almost 2,000 abstracts published 
between 1932 and 1955 by the Fogg Art Museum and the 
Freer Gallery of Art will be included as well. Ultimately, more 
than 100,000 abstracts related to the preservation and 
conservation of material cultural heritage will be accessible 
in AATA Online. New abstracts will be added quarterly, as AATA 
staff work with subject editors and volunteer abstractors to 
expand the breadth, depth, and currency of coverage. 

After registering for this free service, users will be able to 
set a variety of preferences to tailor the system to their research 
interests and needs. The interface provides a number of features 
including several simple but powerful search capabilities; the 
ability to save user-created search strategies for use in future 
sessions; and an on-screen notice of the new abstracts added 
in the users' selected areas of interest in the last quarterly update. 
Users will be able to download or print out their search results. 
The classification scheme and subject category descriptions 
from the print version of AATA can also be displayed online for 
those who prefer to use this more familiar method of searching. 

AATA Online will be introduced to the conservation 
community at the American Institute for Conservation of 
Historic & Artistic Works (AIC) Annual Meeting in Miami 
(June 6-11). The site will officially premiere on June 8. There 
will be subsequent demonstrations of AATA Online at the 
IIC Baltimore Congress 2002 (Sept. 1-6) and at the ICOM-CC 
Triennial Meeting in Rio de Janeiro (Sept. 22-28). Delegates 
will be able to visit booths in the vendor hall at each of these 
conferences to experiment with the new system and to speak
with AATA staff.

In developing AATA Online, GCI staff have devoted time to 
listening to the recommendations of the field, convening focus 
groups, evaluating the technology, and conducting user 
testing. Information gained from these activities will guide 
the final development of the resource. Continuing feedback 
from those members of the field who have supported AATA 
will be solicited.

If you have questions or need additional information, please 
contact the AATA office at aata@xxxxxxxxx .