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(608) 263-2258 for main circulation desk
Trying to find digital reproductions of works of art on the internet can be rewarding or frustrating or both. There are many search options, and it may help if you clarify to yourself exactly what you need in order to help yourself decide where to search first. Are you looking for a specific known work, or are you browsing to locate works by topic? If a known work, do you know what museum or collection owns it? Will you recognize the work by sight sufficient for your purposes (i.e., if the image is cropped, whether the color is approximately accurate, if there are multiple versions)? Do you need the image to be of a certain size or resolution because of presentation or printing needs? With your needs in mind, you can then most efficiently plan a search strategy. All of the following search options have limitations and tradeoffs. If accurate description and indexing are important, it may be advisable to go directly to authoritative sites for preliminary searching although images may be small. If size and resolution are critical, a search engine such as Google allows you to limit retrievals by size but may be unable to locate images contained within searchable museum websites.
http://www.wisc.edu/arth/insitu/index.html (In Situ--departmental image database launched January, 2004)
http://www.wisc.edu/arth/resources/otherlinks2.html (links to worldwide resources in art history)
Artstor
Art Museum Image Gallery
Bridgeman Art Library Archive contained in Credo Reference
Within Grove Art Online, Art Resource and Bridgeman Images are two independent image databases. A search of the "Art Image Links" gets retrievals from museum and gallery websites. Some images are included in the text of articles.
Proquest Historical Newspapers (NY Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times) allow searches for "standalone photos" in newspapers
The following are useful for browsing by topic:
http://www.bridgeman.co.uk/search/quick_search.asp Bridgeman Images (public site)
http://www.corbis.com/ Corbis (check box and adjust menu to search Art)
http://www.scholarsresource.com/ Scholars Resource
http://www.google.com (select "Images" tab; use "Advanced Image Search" to limit for size, file type, color, domain)
http://images.search.yahoo.com/
http://www.altavista.com/image
http://www.alltheweb.com/ (select "Pictures")
http://www.picsearch.com/
to find more about Internet seaching (a good tutorial): http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
CAVEAT: evaluate your findings. Is the image cropped, accurate for color, is it what the website says or implies it is? Is any associated text information written by an authority?
http://www.thinker.com/fam/about/imagebase/index.asp Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (use box for "Search the ImageBase")
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/index.asp Metropolitan Museum of Art (use search box, qualify search to "Online Collection")
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/Getty Research Library Collections (use search box or other options)
http://www.nga.gov/collection/srchart.htm National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (click on "Search the Collection")
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/default_online.htm National Gallery, London (use search box or other options)
to find more--SEARCH FOR MORE MUSEUMS (then evaluate their websites to determine if they have searchable online collections or virtual exhibits)
Search Google directly for the names of museums you know, or
Search Google by keywords (e.g., ceramics museum), or
Search sites that compile museum links, such as:
http://vlmp.museophile.com/
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/museums.html
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks6.html
http://www.eurogallery.org/
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/ ArtCyclopedia (accumulates links to works appearing on other websites)
http://www.askart.com AskART American Artists database (some services/images by subscription only)
http://www.wga.hu/index1.html Web Gallery of Art (European Art)
http://arthist.cla.umn.edu/aict Art Images for College Teaching (more sculpture and architecture than painting)
http://www.artrenewal.org/ ("realistic images touching upon universal and timeless themes")
http://wwar.com/ (mostly contemporary artist portfolios)
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/ (warning: intrusive ads)
http://www.artchive.com (warning: very intrusive ads)
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html Chris Whitcombe's Art History Resources on the Web
http://www.digital-librarian.com/images.html Digital Librarian: Images (browse "Art" and "Images" sections)
http://www.art-design.umich.edu/mother/ Mother of All Art and Art History Links Pages
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/links/imagecolls.html Jeffrey Howe's Art on the Web, Image Collections
http://www.chart.ac.uk/vlib/ History of Art Virtual Library sponsored by CHArt (click "Large Image Collections")
http://lii.org/search?basic_search=1 Librarians' Index to the Internet (search for "pictures" for example)
http://vos.ucsb.edu/ Voice of the Shuttle (browse "Art & Art History" links section)
http://www.davidrumsey.com/collections/index.html (enables searching in a list of image collections)
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/ImageFinder/ (enables searching in a list of image collections)
you can also search WorldCat for your artist or theme and limit to internet resources
http://www.bu.edu/library/instruction/findimages/index.html Boston University
http://www.bu.edu/library/instruction/findimages/arts.html Boston University
http://library.nyu.edu/research/rg63.html New York University Libraries
http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/_Searching_the_Web/Searching_for_images/ Indiana University, Bloomington
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=331#images University of Rochester
http://libraries.mit.edu/rvc/image-collections/categories.html Massachusetts Institute of Technology
http://www.lib.duke.edu/lilly/artsearch/guides/images_page.htm Duke University
http://www.arthistory.ucsb.edu/resources/onlinearchives.php UC-Santa Barbara
http://www.library.yale.edu/art/imageresources.html Yale University
to find more: search Google for "finding images" "finding art images" "finding images on the internet"
Poster shops
include:
http://www.barewalls.com/
-- http://www.postershop.co.uk/ --
http://www.art.com -- http://www.allposters.com/ -- http://www.art-find.artselect.com
Use Google or another search engine to locate others. Posters and reproductions are also available at many museum giftshops worldwide.
OAI (Open Archive
Initiative) sites:
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
-- http://oai.grainger.uiuc.edu/
Copyright sites (only a few
of many) include:
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/copyright/
http://www.uwsa.edu/gc-off/deskbook/copyrgt.htm
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm
http://www.lib.washington.edu/help/guides/copyright.html
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm
(chart of what is/is not in public domain)
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm (more nuanced chart of what is/is not in public domain)
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
(on fair-use)
http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/fairuse.html
(on fair-use)
Clearinghouses
for artist rights
http://www.artres.com (Art Resource)
http://www.arsny.com (Artists Rights Society
- for 20th c. and contemporary artists)
bibliography:
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep04/mattison.shtml
http://www.uoregon.edu/~csundt/imagedir.htm
See the Kohler Art Library handout titled "Pictures?" for hints on locating images in print sources. Then check the options for scanning or photographing print images using equipment at the Kohler Art Library or elsewhere on campus.
last revised
6/08
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