Finding Images, online or in print
Contents:
Online Image Sources
General Image Resources
Resources for Specific Subjects
Print Image Sources
Journals
Books
Art Reproductions
- Art Full Text via WilsonWeb
- Begin by selecting Art Full Text from the Search In: bar near the top of the screen.
To find articles with images of artworks in this database, check the box in front of Page Image (PDF).
http://hwwilsonweb.com
Links to other sources of art reproductions can be found in our Art History Research Guide.
Online Image Resources
General Image Resources
- EBSCOhost Image Database
- A collection of images from a variety of sources and subjects, including historical photos, maps, flags, natural science, and people.
To search the Image Collection, click the Images button in the green bar at the top of the screen.
- LIFE Magazine
- Covers and "classic photos" appearing in LIFE from 1936-1972
- National Geographic: Photography
- Color and black-and-white photographs from the pages of National Geographic magazine.
- New York Public Library Digital Gallery
- Online access to images from NYPL collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, rare prints and photographs, and more.
- New York Times Photo Archive
- Collection of over 1200 historical images from the past 100 years. Categories include New York, American Experience, Politics, Science & Technology, War, International, and others. Also see the Multimedia page for slides shows and video clips.
- Photograph Collections
- There are links to may web sites containing images here. Do a search for "photograph collections" to find them.
- Smithsonian Images
- Contemporary and historical photographs from the Smithsonian's collections. Topics include art, cultural, military, and political history, air & space, history of technology, and the National Mall.
- U.S. Government Graphics and Photos
- Lists a wide variety of image resources
- Google Images
AltaVista Images
Flickr
Ditto.com
PicSearch - Search for images on the web.
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Image Resources for Specific Subjects
Below are just a few of many image databases available over the web. To find others, try searching Google for "image library" or "image database" (include the quotation marks).
Most of these sites allow you to browse by subject category or search by keyword(s).
- Bioscience ImageBank
- Images on a variety of bioscience subjects, including agriculture, cell biology, forestry, marine biology, and plant physiology.
- Cities and Building Database
- A collection of over 5000 images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world. From the University of Washington.
- Congress of Neurological Surgeons Image Database
- Includes various formats of medical imaging as well as photographs. (Note: the photos are fairly graphic.)
- Molecular Expressions
- Large collection of color photographs taken through an optical microscope. Galleries include DNA, pharmaceuticals, birthstones, pesticides, even beer and cocktails.
- NASA Image eXchange (NIX)
- NIX is a centralized source for searching photographs, images, and movies throughout NASA, on topics such as aircraft, solar system, space flights, and wind tunnels. There are links to additional sources of NASA images as well.
- NASA's Visible Earth
- Contains public domain, Earth-science related images, data visualizations, and animations.
- National Science Foundation Image Library
- High quality images from many areas of science, including anthropology, biology, chemistry, nanotechnology, ocean science, paleontology, and physics.
- Our Earth As Art
- A project of the USGS and NASA. This site includes images taken by the Landsat-7 satellite and ASTER, the Terra Satellite's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.
- Plant Facts--Plant Dictionary
- Photographs in 4 categories: ornamental plants, insects and diseases, turf photos, and fruit & vegetables. There is no browse mode, but if you leave the search box empty you can view all the images in a category.
- Postcard and Greeting Card Museum
- View images from Victorian times to the present, in galleries including New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, birthdays, and birth announcements.
- Public Health Image Library
- "An extensive collection of still images, image sets, and multimedia files related to public health." Categories include science (including diseases), people and places.
- Terra Server USA
- Maps and aerial photographs of the United States. Search by street address, city, state, or longitude and latitude. There's also a Famous Places section to browse. Sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey and Microsoft.
- Time Magazine Covers Archive
- Includes all the covers from 1923 to the present. You can search or browse.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Digital Library System
- A collection of public domain still photos of "wildlife, plants, National Wildlife Refuges and other scenics, as well as wildlife management work." There is no browsing capability.
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Print Image Sources
Journals
Many journals and magazines in the St. Kate's Library (St. Paul campus) are full of photographs and other images. Below is a sample of some you can browse--journals are shelved alphabetically by their title.
| American Scientist Astronomy Better Homes and Gardens Child Environment GQ Gourmet History Today Michaels Create! Mother Jones Mpls St. Paul National Geographic |
Natural History New Scientist Outdoor Life Parents Popular Science Scientific American Sky & Telescope Smithsonian Technology Review Threads Vogue ym |
Books
You can't search CLICnet directly for books containing images. However, you can search for books about your topic and check to see if any of them have illustrations. Here's how:
- Perform a search in CLICnet.
- If you wish, you can use the Advanced Search tab, and set the Material Type limit to "Books."
- Click on the title of a book you're interested in.
- Scroll down below the Location table, to the information labeled "Descript"
- Check for the abbreviation "ill." -- this means the book contains illustrations.
- The abbreviation "col." means some or all of the illustrations are in color.
Since children's books tend to be richly illustrated, you can limit your search to those items.
- Go to CLICnet
- Use the Advanced Search tab
- Set the Collection or Institution limit to "Curriculum/Juvenile Collections"
- Set the Material Type limit to "Books"
- Follow the instructions given above