Images

Finding Images for Coursework & Research:

          

ARTstor is a digital library with more than 1 million images.  It is available to UCC staff and students, both on and off-campus. It includes images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities and social sciences.  ARTstor collections comprise contributions from museums, individual photographers, scholars, special collections in libraries, and photo archives.

Some examples of collections within ARTstor:

• Magnum Photograph Collection
• Library of Congress Collection
• Manuscripts of Early Printed Books, Bodleian Library, Oxford
• Islamic Art and Architecture
• Giza Archaeological Expedition Archive
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Italian and Other European Art (Scala collection)

See ARTstor training videos on Youtube and Artstor help menus.
Note: The images are available solely for educational and/or scholarly uses that are non-commercial in nature.  Please read the Terms and Conditions of use. Note also: system requirements.

Some Other Library Databases with Images:

A number of other databases, available through UCC Library, provide access to images:

• Oxford Art Online/Grove Art: contains 5,000 images along with biographies and subject entries.
• Index to Christian Art: a thematic and iconographic index of early Christian and medieval art objects to 1400. Contains works indexed by the Princeton University archive since 1991.
• JSTOR: contains many images.  Once you have completed a search of the database in the normal way, click on the ‘only results with images’ tab to see images related to your search terms.
• Academic Search Complete: access to more than 180,000 images relating to people, natural science, places, history, and flags. Search the database in the normal way using relevant search terms. On the results page look for ‘related images’ on the right of the screen. Click on ‘find more’.
• It is also possible to find images within ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ (after completing a search, look at results under the ‘video, images and audio’ heading).

Free Resources on the Web - examples:

Online Tutorial: Internet for Image Searching (JISC Digital Media): excellent free online tutorial designed to help staff and students in universities to find digital images for their learning and teaching.  N.B. you  should always look for copyright or licensing information first.

• Web links: information resources for History of Art students in UCC.
• Europeana: links to 2 million digital items: images, videos, sounds, texts etc.
• Google Art Project: explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks.
• Bridgeman Art: register with Bridgeman for access to more than 400,000 images.
• VADS: over 100,000 images free to use in education.
• Artsource: a ‘gathering point for networked resources on Art and Architecture’.
• Web Gallery of Art: searchable database of European painting and sculpture.
• Creative Commons Search
  
• Pixabay: public domain images
• Wikimedia Commons: Visual Arts useful resources for copyright-cleared images.
  
• Photo Collections on the Web: Flickr: Library of Congress,  LIFE Photo Archive (for personal non-commercial use only), Flickr: Creative Commons,  Wikimedia Commons,  Getty Images, Alamy,  Stock.xchng,  depositphotos,  shutterstock,  istockphoto,  veer,  jupiterimage, corbisimages,  fotolia,  thinkstockphotos,  dreamstime.
  
• Flickr: The Commons is a particularly good source for images with ‘no known copyright restrictions’.
• National Library of Ireland : digital photograph collection from 1860.
• Copyright Friendly Images and Sound (wiki): for use in media projects, web pages, blogs etc.
• Color vision and art ;  Causes of Color ;  The Color Wheel and Color Relationships

Copyright & Advice:

• When sourcing images on the web (e.g. through ‘Google Images’), always look for information on copyright and permitted uses. Contact the rights holder if you are unsure. For further information see: Copyright and Related Rights Act (2000), Creative Commons,  Flickr Creative Commons.
  
• JISC Digital Media: this is an excellent resource, providing detailed information on finding and using images, digitisation, and managing your digital resources.
• Sourcing images for publication (in an academic journal or book): it is likely that the publisher will require images to be at least 300 DPI’s (dots-per-inch). In ARTstor, images that are marked ‘IAP’ (Images for Academic Publishing) are suitable. However, before using an image, it is still necessary to get permission from the copyright holder.  For non-IAP images you should request the copyright holder to send a publication-quality image for publication.
• When including images in academic work, they should be numbered, and given a caption that identifies the artist, the title of the work (normally in italics), the date, medium, its present location (if known), its dimensions (if known): e.g.

Masaccio, Madonna and Child, 1426, tempera on panel, London, National Gallery, 135.5 cm × 75 cm

Last updated: 01 May 2013