Getty Research Institute, Institutional Archives

The records comprise interviews that were conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) and Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) in 1986 and 1988. The interviews consist of discussions with experts and researchers in the history of art and architecture. The interviews focus on research concerns and practices in an effort to determine what types of automated tools and networked resources would enhance scholarly work in the field of art history. Materials include sound recordings and transcripts.

Project records date from the 1990s to 2017, and undated and consist of files from the Getty Conservation Institute's (GCI) collaboration with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (EAO), renamed the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in 1994. Project aimed to undertake comprehensive conservation and site management planning for the Valley of the Queens. Records consist of electronic and paper files, research documents, correspondence, video and image files, logs, reports, publications, and drawings. The records document project activities such as planning, condition assessments, scientific analyses, conservation treatments, environmental monitoring, graphic documentation, site protection planning, and conservation training.

The collection comprises twenty-nine handwritten diaries (1938-1946, 1948-1976) of billionaire J. Paul Getty. The diaries focus on his travels, business dealings, art collecting, and interests, providing insights into his personality, priorities, politics, relationships, tastes, and values. They contain daily accounts of Getty's activities, briefly describing social events, business meetings, museum visits, historical and archaeological sites, art objects, and the various people with whom he interacted. They reveal his business practices and philosophies, his passion for history and art, and his cultivation of friendships with influential people. The diaries also illustrate Getty's relations with people in the art world and contain his personal opinions on particular art objects, demonstrating how he developed the collections of decorative arts, antiquities, paintings, and sculpture that evolved into the J. Paul Getty Museum.