Volume 9, Number 3, Sept 1987, pp.8-9

AATA: Present and Future

In 1983, when the Getty Trust took over operating and financial responsibility for Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts (AATA) on behalf of IIC, it agreed to investigate ways of broadening AATA's coverage of the conservation literature, both geographically and by subject area. Two recent developments have supported this goal: the creation of a computer-based Conservation Information Network and the appointment of an enlarged Board of Specialty Editors for AATA.

A collaborative venture of the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), the International Centre for the Study of the Restoration and Preservation of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), and the Conservation Analytical Lab of the Smithsonian Institution (CAL), the Conservation Information Network currently consists of a bibliographic database, a database of materials used in conservation, a directory of suppliers, and an electronic mail system. The Network is available at present to a small group of test users and will be released internationally to interested subscribers in September at the 8th triennial meeting of the ICOM Committee for Conservation. While access will initially be on a read-only basis, in time a mechanism will be worked out for accepting institutions involved in conservation practice.

The bibliographic database began by merging all retrospective material contained in AATA with ICCROM's library holdings, as a means of eliminating the duplication of abstracting efforts and of further broadening the coverage of the literature. With the addition of bibliographic records from the other partners noted above, the database currently contains more than 100,000 citations, the majority of which include abstracts.

The development of this Network has provided additional material for publication in AATA and has also made it possible to produce AATA directly from the bibliographic database, beginning with Volume 23, Number 1. During the coming year, alternate methods for submitting and editing abstracts will be tested for those abstractors and editors who have access to the Network or to a microcomputer.

With the approval in 1987 of the IIC Council, the AATA Board of Editors has been expanded and Editors have been assigned specific sections for review. The new board met for the first time in New York on June 18-19 to review developments in the AATA publishing process, the structure of the abstracting and editing network, as well as the abstracts submissions for Volume 24, to be published at the end of November.

Volume 24 (1987) will mark a change in AATA's publication schedule; Numbers 1 and 2 will be published as a single fascicle in late November, so that for the 1988 volume both numbers will be published in the same calendar year: Number 1 will be released in the Spring and Number 2 published in the Autumn.

Another project underway for the coming year is the publication of a cumulative author-title index to AATA, Volumes 11-24, which will be published in early 1988. Although such an index cannot replace cumulative subject access, the later will be available through the Network while a new subject indexing system is developed for print publication.

Brochures describing the Conservation Information Network are available from all the partners listed above. For further information concerning AATA, please contact Jessica S. Brown.