AATA Online

Last year, the Field Editors for AATA Online: Abstracts of
International Conservation Literature, met for two days at the Getty
Center to provide advice to the Getty Conservation Institute on the
future editorial scope of this free service.  The editors in
attendance affirmed the importance of the resource for the field
and, in recent months, have assisted us in making a number of
changes to AATA Online:

The editors reviewed the list of 150 titles that constitutes AATA
Onlineis core coverage, and several new titles have been added at
their suggestion.  The editors agreed that our highest priority
should be on maintaining thorough and timely coverage of the titles
on this list.  Consisting primarily of journal titles, this list
also includes selected conference proceedings and monograph series,
and is available for review at <URL:http://www.aata.getty.edu>.
Additional titles will be added to the list as staff and volunteer
resources allow.

In reviewing our coverage of each of the titles, going back to the
year 2002, we discovered a number of gaps and have now engaged the
help of students in several of the North American training programs
to undertake retrospective abstracting so that our coverage will be
comprehensive.

The editors also reviewed the scope profile for their respective
sections and we continue to implement their suggested refinements.
Recently, the existing G2 section was subdivided into two
sections--one for Photographs and one for Audiovisual materials.
With the October update, the entire Archaelogical Conservation
section will be reorganized to better reflect changes in this area
of conservation research and practice.

AATA Onlineis continuing ability to maintain comprehensive coverage
of our core coverage list requires the full efforts of the small
AATA Online office staff.  A number of dedicated volunteers from
around the world supplement the work of the staff by regularly
contributing abstracts for a number of the core journals that we
cannot cover in-house.  In addition, volunteer abstractors also
submit abstracts of hundreds of unique publications on an irregular
basis each year.  Over the last three years, over 150 individuals
have written and submitted abstracts to the database.  Without these
continued contributions from volunteers, AATA Online will not be
able to maintain its coverage of the breadth and depth of the
fieldis literature as it has done for over forty years.  As the
number and variety of publications in the field grow, additional
volunteer help remains urgently needed and most appreciated.

To make the contribution process as effortless as possible, the GCI
is developing a Web-based submission tool that allows volunteers to
submit new abstracts online.  As soon as we complete development of
this tool we will send out an announcement to the field.  In the
meantime, we continue to accept abstracts by mail, Fax: , or email
attachment.

AATA Online is produced as a service to the field by the GCI in
association with The International Institute for Conservation of
Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) and with ICCROM (International
Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural
Property). For additional information, please contact us at
aata [at] getty__edu.

Luke Swetland, Senior Manager, AATA Online


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:14
                   Distributed: Tuesday, July 3, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-14-002
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