Online Image Resources
Why This List?
The following compilation of online image and video repositories is intended to connect instructors, researchers, and students to publicly accessible media that is available to users with little to no restrictions. Media found through these links can be used for individual study or to supplement formal class lectures and, as such, can serve as a resource beyond traditional slides or textbooks This compilation allows instructors, students, and other researchers to access a wide array of images without needing to address the copyright issues involved in making one’s own collection.
Why ‘Not’ This List?
While we have striven to identify resources that can be used with the fewest restrictions possible, such as creative commons, the sites linked below vary in their level of uses permitted—end-users should carefully review the terms of service of each site accessed.
The Copyright Advisory Office does not guarantee copyright clearance to any media found on or through these sites, and assumes that developers and users of the databases have properly addressed any remaining copyright issues. If you suspect that you may need to apply fair use or other copyright exceptions, or seek appropriate permission for your specific use (e.g. for purposes other than online study and enjoyment, or any use outside a limitation put in place by any rightsholders) you may want to point your browser to our Public Domain Resources page.
Jump to:
- Crowdsourced & User-Generated Content
- Digital Fine Art and Photography Digital Collections
- Licensed Image Repositories
- Major Art Databases
- Scientific & Medical Images
- Video for the Masses
Crowdsourced & User-Generated Content
Creative Commons Search
Creative Commons Search utilizes the Creative Commons-enabled search services at Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, and other search engines to locate images that are free to share or build upon. The search feature also can be filtered to return material that is usable for commercial purposes.
Flickr and Creative Commons
Many of the images on Flickr have been added with a Creative Commons license, making them easily available for many uses, especially noncommercial uses of higher education. To search only for Creative Commons images, visit the web address noted above and conduct your search within each form of the CC licenses.
The Commons on Flickr
The Commons, not to be confused with the Creative Commons mentioned above, was launched in January 2008 as a pilot project in partnership with the Library of Congress. Other participating institutions include the Getty Research Institute, the National Media Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. Within The Commons, participating institutions contribute content from their collections under the usage guideline “no known copyright restrictions”.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a database of nearly 5 million freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. Content is searchable and organized according to media type, image source, topic, author type, and copyright status, such as Creative Commons license or public domain.
Digital Fine Art and Photography Digital Collections
Discover Yale Digital Content
Cross Collection Discovery provides a way to search across Yale’s collections of art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video documenting people, places, and events that form part of Yale’s institutional identity and contribution to scholarship. Not all content available through Discover Yale Digital Content is unrestricted. Please refer to the rights information in the record for each item.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Over 82,000 images from the collections of the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor are accessible through the Museum’s ImageBase feature. Images are searchable through a general search engine, and the ImageBase includes a detail feature allowing users to zoom in on any image. The site also provides a “My Gallery” feature through which registered users can build an unlimited number of online galleries that can be publicly shared or kept private.
The Granger Collection
The Granger Collection, brings together the people, places, things, and events of the past 25,000 years in every form of graphic expression (save film footage) and has grown to more than six million black-and-white prints, photographs, and color transparencies.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Collection database offers over 130,000 images from the Museum’s permanent collection, categorized according their department within the Museum. The “My Met Gallery” feature allows registered users to create their own personal online galleries of images. The Museum also makes available a number of high-resolution digital images to the scholarly community for specific educational uses, which are distributed through the Images for Academic Publishing service of ARTstor.org.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s MFA Images
MFA Images has historical portraits, examples of different art movements, images of objects from numerous cultures, and illustrations that span the Museum’s collection. Images can be used for personal enjoyment or licensed for reproduction.
National Museums of Scotland Image Library
The Image Library contains pictures from the: National Museum of Scotland; National Museum of Rural Life Scotland; National War Museum Scotland; National Museum of Flight Scotland; and the National Museum of Costume Scotland.
The New York Public Library Digital Gallery
The Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 685,000 images digitized from The New York Public Library’s collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, and photographs. Images can be browsed by subject matter and the gallery also provides advanced search features.
Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum uses a platform called ARTscape to give users access to digitized iterations of the museum’s objects. Included are photos and descriptions of each object, definitions, book excerpts, quotations, and video and audio clips.
The Walters Art Museum
Using a similar interface as The Metropolitan Museum of art and the Peabody Essex Museum, The Walters allows users to download high quality digital images of exhibitons, along with conservation and exhibtion histories.
Licensed-Image Repositories
AP Images
AP Images, a division of the Associated Press with and archive with millions of images in entertainment, sports, news, archival and creative content. It also gives you access to photo and video crews who will create the content based on your needs.
British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies
The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) has a helpful image search broken down by type of image. Topics include: sport; celebrities; social documentary; natural world; and architecture.
PLUS — Picture Licensing Universal System
The PLUS Coalition is an international non-profit organization that aims to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights through technology.
Major Art Databases
Artchive
The site has galleries of online exhibitions of specific artists, movements, and the Artchive’s recent acquisitions. The “Artchive Tours” section offers a “Favorites” tour, introducing viewers to over 2,000 images from 200 different artists. The site’s image viewer feature allows users to resize images and zoom in on image details up to 200%.
Artcyclopedia
Artcyclopedia functions as a conduit to fine art resources on the web, containing over 140,000 art-related links that are searchable by artist name or nationality, artistic movement, title of the work, subject matter, and medium. Search results typically lead the user to the work’s home institution. Additional searching within the individual museum website may be required.
ARTstor
ARTstor is a digital library of more than one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences that are available for non-commercial teaching, research, and educational purposes. Access to ARTstor is provided to individuals affiliated with participating institutions, and, when the subscribing institution supports such access
Art Images for College Teaching
Art Images for College Teaching houses approximately 300 images, all photographed by website author Allan T. Kohl. Though textual information on the images is sparse and many images are in black and white, the site provides a solid and basic introduction to many iconic images in the study of art history. A unique feature is the site’s “Textbook Concordance,” which provides an index of the images according to their references in commonly used art history textbooks.
Art Resource
Art Resource holds more than 400,000 searchable fine art images and over three million transparencies and black and white photographs of works of painting, sculpture, architecture and the minor arts. The objects are cross-referenced by subject, title, artist, period, place, and medium.
Olga’s Gallery
Olga’s Gallery began as an online art encyclopedia to help children learn about art history. The site contains over 10,000 images, largely devoted to European and American works. Images are indexed by artist, country, and movement. The site also offers extensive biographies for featured artists.
Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum containing over 22,000 images, focusing on European painting and sculpture from the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romantic, and Realism periods. Users can search by artist name, and a generalized search engine option is also available. The site offers picture commentaries, artist biographies, and guided tours.
Scientific & Medical Images
Weill Cornell Medical College Library
A resource to assist academics negotiating copyright issues relating to the use of medical images, the Weill Cornell Medical College Library provides links to sources of medical images organized according to their level of usage restrictions.
Wellcome Images
An image database of the Wellcome Library’s history of medicine collection comprised of over 40,000 images that are freely available to download for personal use or study, and academic teaching. The site contains both historical and contemporary images on themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science.
Video for the Masses
Community Video
This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.
Perlinger Archive
You are warmly encouraged by the Perlinger Archive to download, use and reproduce the (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films provided, in whole or in part, in any medium or market throughout the world. You are also warmly encouraged to share, exchange, redistribute, transfer and copy these films, and especially encouraged to do so for free.
It goes without saying that this list is by no means exhaustive, but, as there are links to a few sites that offer professional services, we want to make it clear that their appearance on this list should not be construed as an endorsement on the part of this office or Columbia University.
Most Recent Revision: 01122011
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