TGM I has been developed to complement other tools used for cataloging pictures. Descriptive cataloging records for pictorial items and groups can be prepared with guidance from the 2nd edition of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2, revised 1988),¹ supplemented by the manual Graphic Materials.² The latter set of rules expands and interprets AACR2 for descriptive cataloging of graphics in historical and archival collections. To aid in the identification and retrieval of pictures by their physical type and format, Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms (TGM II) may be used.³ As noted above, TGM I incorporates terminology from this thesaurus, but TGM II itself should be consulted for the most current vocabulary, for information about the definition and scope of specific terms, and for guidance in the relationships among TGM II terms.

Whether an institution's system is manual or automated, access to graphic materials will be greatly improved through widespread application of a set of standard tools. The USMARC Format for Bibliographic Description (a standard for communicating bibliographic data in machine readable form) accommodates the use of all of the tools mentioned here.⁴