Elisabetta Marabotto of Saffronart on the Getty Research Institute’s latest offering

Last month the Getty Research Institute launched a new project which promises to be an immense benefit for the international academic community. The Getty Research Portal is an online facility for art history, architecture and related subjects. So far 20,000 books have been digitalized and are now available online. Most of them were drawn from the Getty Research Institute’s own holdings, and from the libraries of eight international institutions. The portal is available to everyone and the texts can be downloaded free of charge.

This new portal will significantly benefit art historians’ research, making rare books, international periodicals and other important texts available across the globe. The Getty Research Portal will also be useful for students and art historians who don’t have access to major libraries at their home institutions.

Currently, the emphasis of the material available on the portal is mainly on western art, with a few texts on Asian art in Asian languages. However, Murtha Baca, the director of the Getty Research Institute’s program in digital art history, promises that this area is something they are concentrating on, and will continue to develop their collection over the following months and years.

More information about the Research Portal can be found on Getty’s website and on this article.