Library Guides: FSEM: Immigrant Stories: Theirs and Ours: Finding Images

Commercial Digital Image Collections

AP Images
Contains photographs, audio sound bites, graphics, and text spanning over 160 years of history.
Artstor
A nonprofit resource that provides over 1.6 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research.
Britannica Image Quest
Access more than two million rights-cleared images from over 50 of the best collections in the world.
Vogue Archive
A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images.
National Geographic Virtual Library
Brings together a complete archive of National Geographic magazine, every page of every issue, along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos.

Public Access Image Databases

A list of sources for public domain and relatively unrestricted images.

Yale University
National Gallery of Art
- Open Access Policy
- Collections Search
The Getty
- Open Content Program
- Getty Search Gateway
LACMA
- Terms of Use
- Collections Search
Walters Art Museum
- Collections Search
Rijksstudio
A service of the Rijksmuseum, Rijksstudio offers high resolution images (4500x4500px usually) for public domain works via a direct download on the site.
- For ordering TIFFs: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/photoservice
- Rijksstudio search and browse: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio?ii=0&p=0&from=2016-08-02T20%3A37%3A02.4603358Z
NYPL Digital Collections
You can limit your search to public domain images only.
- Explanation of public domain collections: https://www.nypl.org/research/collections/digital-collections/public-domain
- Public domain search results page: http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=&filters%5Brights%5D=pd
Library of Congress Digital Collections
This collection contains a mix of restricted and unrestricted works. However, each subcollection has detailed information regarding usage restrictions. Some material does not have restrictions (for example, drawings from the Lamb Studios Drawings)
- Master list of rights for subcollections: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html
- Collection search: https://www.loc.gov/collections
Wellcome Images
Historical images are available for free, high-res download and are licensed under CC-BY 4.0 (creative commons attribution-only license). The images must be credited.
- Policy: https://wellcomeimages.org/ (see “Services” section)
- Collections search: https://wellcomeimages.org/
Europeana Art History Collection
Europeana allows you to limit to “Free re-use” images on the search results page.
- Terms and policies: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/rights.html
- Search for art history images: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/collections/art-history?q
Flickr Commons
This is a collection of material from various cultural heritage institutions, which contribute images of works believed to be in the public domain.
- Flickr Commons rights statement explanation: https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/
- Commons search page: https://www.flickr.com/commons
Flickr
The main Flickr website also allows you to filter by license. Many images are licensed using creative commons licenses, some of which allow for modifications (like cropping) and commercial use. Appropriate filters would be: Commercial use & mods allowed, No known copyright restrictions, U.S. Government works
- Flickr search: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10
OpenGLAM
OpenGLAM is a directory of open access image collections online.
- OpenGLAM directory listing: http://open-collections.okfn.org/items/browse?search=&type=18
Public Domain Review
Public Domain Review is a curated online publication that also links to high-resolution images. The images page allows you to filter by rights. Some of the images come from Wikimedia Commons.
- Public Domain Review Rights labeling explanation: http://publicdomainreview.org/rights-labelling-on-our-site/
- Public Domain Review Images page: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/?medium=image

Historic Images

Library of Congress Image Collections
Includes historic photograph collections.
Denver Public Library's Digital Collection
The Denver Public Library's Western History/Genealogy collection contains photographs, art, maps, architectural drawings and, other documents chronicling the history of Denver and the west.
Art Source International: Historic Colorado Photographs
This company has accumulated over 2000 original glass plates, negatives and original photographs of Colorado dating from around 1865 to 1940. Fee-based collection. This site includes photos by well known western photographers such as William Henry Jackson, J.B. Sturtevant (a.k.a. Rocky Mountain Joe), Louis McClure, in addition to many one of a kind images. Many of the photographs illustrate historic Boulder, Denver, and Aspen as well as over 50 other Colorado cities
Flickr: The Commons
"The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer."

Use the "Search The Commons" search box to limit your search to results from participating institutions.
Wikimedia Commons
Source for public domain image and audiovisual files, with information about using the files legally and fairly.
Google Images
A wide array of images from across the disciplines, but quality can be uneven and may not include attribution of original source. If you plan to post images found via Google on the Web or use them in a publication, ensure you have permissions from the original source.
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.

University of Denver

University Libraries

Research Guides

FSEM: Immigrant Stories: Theirs and Ours: Finding Images

Commercial Digital Image Collections

Public Access Image Databases

Historic Images