Bibliography of the History of Art to cease at the end of March

March 24, 2021
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It appears that the Bibliography of the History of Art is to fold at the end of this month due to cost cutting at the Getty. The Cornell University Library reports that:

For a number of years, the Getty Research Institute has maintained the database, Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA). Cornell has been able to license access to that database via OCLC’s First Search platform. Due to the economic crisis, the Getty took the radical step last summer of declining to continue the BHA. On Friday, March 5, we received notification that our licensed access to the BHA will continue through March 31, 2010.

The BHA is the decisive periodical citation index for art history scholarship, and this is certainly a very unfortunate decision. Many of us had been holding out hope that another entity would be willing to take over the management of the database from the Getty, but apparently those “quiet” negotiations have now failed. This online guide is meant to to alternative citation indices that you can use after March 31. Although this will likely involve more work on the part of researchers, we will at least have some substantive alternatives in place. I will continue to update this guide in the event that other alternatives become available to the Cornell community.


There are also reports in the Art History Newsletter, and on BHA itself, there is also a rationale for the decision on the Getty website.

The database will continue to operate until the 31st of March.



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