View source for Art & Architecture Thesaurus

== What is AAT? ==
The Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_vocabulary controlled vocabulary] used for describing items of art, architecture, and material culture. The AAT contains generic terms, such as "cathedral," but no proper names, such as "Cathedral of Notre Dame." The AAT is used by, among others, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum museums], art libraries, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive archives], catalogers, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Researcher researchers] in art and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_history art history]. The AAT is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesaurus thesaurus] in compliance with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO ISO] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NISO NISO] standards including [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_2788 ISO 2788] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_5964 ISO 5964].  Final editorial control of the AAT is maintained by the Getty Vocabulary Program.<ref>Wikipedia Art & Architecture [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_%26_Architecture_Thesaurus]</ref>

== Thesaurus Information ==
The Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) is a collection of 131,000 authority records about the visual arts and architecture maintained by the Getty Institute. Though the AAT is updated every month, the licensed version—which Backstage uses—is sent out once annually.

== Examples ==
Within the authority record itself, the AAT entry lists the main heading in the 155 tag:

 001 __ 300015529
 155 __ <font color="#3366FF">$a</font>bird<nowiki>’</nowiki>s-eye views<font color="#FF0000">$B</font>(<nowiki><</nowiki>views by vantage point or orientation<nowiki>></nowiki>, 
 views, <nowiki><</nowiki>visual works by form: image form<nowiki>></nowiki>, <nowiki><</nowiki>visual works by form<nowiki>></nowiki>, <nowiki><</nowiki>visual works<nowiki>></nowiki>, 
 Visual Works, Visual and Verbal Communication, Objects Facet)<font color="#FF0000">$I</font>1000015529<font color="#FF0000">$T</font>Descriptor<font color="#FF0000">$G</font>N/A<font color="#FF0000">$H</font>
 Current<font color="#FF0000">$V</font>Undetermined<font color="#FF0000">$L</font>70052/American English<font color="#FF0000">$A</font>N/A<font color="#FF0000">$O</font>N/A<font color="#FF0000">$8</font>300015529.1

The 155 $a is the part of the heading that will be reflected in your updated bib heading:

 655 __ <font color="#3366FF">$a</font>bird<nowiki>’</nowiki>s-eye views

I can see what you<nowiki>’</nowiki>re thinking on this: How is it that the authority<nowiki>’</nowiki>s 155 above contains so much more information than the bib<nowiki>’</nowiki>s 655 field? Sometime in the last year, the AAT authority records began including an incredible amount of reference points & additional information encoded into capital-letter & numbered subfields. Unless your system is able to incorporate this extra data, the pertinent information you likely prefer to retain resides in the main (lower-cased) subfields.

In order to bring the authority records received from AAT back into a more manageable structure, Backstage can remove all of the capital-letter subfields as well as the numbered <nowiki>[</nowiki>0-9<nowiki>]</nowiki> subfields. This makes the loading into your system error-free in case your system balks at the extra subfields it has to somehow categorize on the fly.

So this revised authority heading:

 001 __ 300015529
 155 __ <font color="#3366FF">$a</font>bird<nowiki>’</nowiki>s-eye views

Now matches cleanly and updates easily within your ILS system.

At least now you<nowiki>’</nowiki>ll know what to look AAT in your Art & Architecture Thesaurus authorities.

== Links ==
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/aat/about.html

<references />

[[category:Authority Control]]