LibGuides: Finding and Using Images: Finding Digital Images

Introduction

This page offers a selection of digital resources which students and faculty can use to browse for images, including materials such as historical and modern artwork, photographs, digitized primary sources, etc.

Please see the box below for links and brief descriptions for each resource. You will find a combination of UMSL's subscription databases; digitized library, museum, and gallery collections; newspapers; and more.

For questions about searching a specific database or locating a specific type of material, please contact the library! We would be happy to assist you.

Where to Look for Online Images

This list is a short selection of sites which offer digital collections from prominent libraries, museums, and galleries. For a longer list of options which offer digital artwork in the public domain or under a CC0 license, please visit our Free Use Images page.

British Library: Images Online
Thousands of searchable images, including those from significant historical collections. Images are free to download and reuse but must be credited to the British Library Board.

Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
The Library of Congress Digital Collections is a repository of digital images, historic newspapers, early audio recordings, manuscripts, motion pictures and books, as well as "born digital" materials, such as selected Web sites. View the Rights page of each collection to find reuse guidelines.

The National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge, includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925. Jukebox content will increase regularly.

Cleveland Museum of Art Online Collection
Searchable online database of digitized artwork from the Cleveland Art Museum. Images are under a CC0 license.

Europeana Collections This link opens in a new window
Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitized items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for. Also included are thematic collections on art, fashion, music, natural history, photography and World War I with related galleries, blogs and exhibitions.
Internet Archive: Images This link opens in a new window
The Internet Archive's Images collection contains digital images uploaded by Archive users which range from maps to astronomical imagery to photographs of artwork. Many of these images are available to be downloaded.
Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Collection Online This link opens in a new window
The Collection Online, the primary digital collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Images have a CC0 license.

Included are over 400,000 records with photographs and basic descriptions. The collection can be searched or browsed by Artist/Maker/Culture, Object Type/Material, Geographic Location, Date/Era, and Museum Department.Collections include: Ancient Near Eastern Art, Photographs, Drawings & Prints, Decorative Arts, Sculpture, Arms & Armor, Book Arts, Textiles, Islamic Art, Greek & Roman Art, Modern & Contemporary Art, Asian Art, Medieval Art, Costumes, European Paintings, American Paintings & Sculpture, Egyptian Art, Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas, and Musical Instruments.
National Gallery of Art Images This link opens in a new window
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art (U.S.). More than 51,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use.
New York Public Library Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
New materials are added daily. The collection features prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
Smithsonian Open Access This link opens in a new window
Explore and reuse millions of digital items from the Smithsonian’s collections. Also includes datasets, 3D tools, a learning lab (for curricula & lesson plans), and developer tools.
Yale Digital Commons This link opens in a new window
More than 250,000 images from Yale's collections of art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR contains articles and books, usually at least 3-5 years old, from scholarly sources. For more recent material, use Discover@UMSL or another individual databases.
** In response to the COVID pandemic JSTOR granted free access to an extended list of journals until June 30, 2023. **
UMSL has access to the following JSTOR Collections:
- Arts & Sciences I (economics, history, political science, sociology, ecology, mathematics, and statistics)
- Arts & Sciences II (additional journals for many of the disciplines in Arts & Sciences I, plus journals in several additional disciplines: archaeology, classics, and African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Slavic studies)
- Arts & Sciences III i(languages and literature, music, film studies, folklore, performing arts, religion, feminist & women's studies, and the history & study of art and architecture)
- Arts & Sciences IV (business, education, and law, psychology, public policy and administration)
- Health & General Sciences (historical scientific journals, health sciences)
- Books at JSTOR (50,000+ titles)
- Early Journal Content (journals published in the United States before 1923 and published in other countries before 1870)
Researchers and students may also be interested in JSTOR's Data for Research beta site, a free, self-service tool that allows computer scientists, digital humanists, and other researchers to select and interact with JSTOR content. The Data for Research site contains a set of web-based tools, including:
- a powerful faceted search interface that can be leveraged to define content of interest through an iterative process of searching and results filtering
- word frequencies, citations, key terms, and ngrams utilized for conducting analysis of document-level data
- topic modeling (classification of subject headings at the article level), a powerful tool for content selection and filtering
- downloadable datasets containing word frequencies, citations, key terms, or ngrams associated with the content selected
- visualization tools
MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new window
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This multidisciplinary database provides full text for thousands of general reference publications, reference books, and primary source documents, as well as more than half a million images, including photos, maps and flags.

This resource is provided to UMSL via MOREnet, the Missouri Research and Education Network.
Open Artstor This link opens in a new window
Access to selected images from the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa, the Science Museum Group, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Wellcome Collection.

UMSL Digital Library
Digital collections from UMSL Libraries including books, periodicals, other archival materials, and more from the St. Louis Mercantile Library, Thomas Jefferson Library, University Archives, and institutional repository.

Missouri Digital Heritage This link opens in a new window
Through the Missouri Digital Heritage Initiative, the Missouri State Archives, the Missouri State Library, and the State Historical Society of Missouri, are working with institutions across the state to digitize their records. Included are historic newspapers, documents, art, photographs, maps and other materials.
State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Primarily focused on Missouri history, biography, and genealogy, the reference collection includes books, oral histories, pamphlets, manuscript collections, maps, newspapers on microfilm, and official state publications. Only some of the material is available online.

Finding and Using Images

Introduction

Where to Look for Online Images

See also: