Open Access Databases: Images & Photographs

Access to images from over 7,000 advertisements printed in US and Canadian papers and magazines from 1911-1955. Produced by the Duke University Library Special Collections. [Research guide: https://guides.library.duke.edu/adaccess]

Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) began as a personal project dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.

Cities Around the World presents over 6,100 photographic images from the slide collections of the American Geographical Society Library. The images selected for this project focus on architecture, city life, people, transportation and other aspects of urban development, such as neighborhoods, commercial streets, and business districts.

The Creative Commons project is a nonprofit organization offering flexible copyright for creative work. On their website you will find links to music, images, video, text, and more. One of their goals is to encourage creativity through sharing and collaboration.

An image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.

104 collections of digitized images of artworks, cultural and historical artifacts, etc., from museums and other sources maintained by Digital Library Platform & Services (DLPS) at the University of Michigan University Library.

For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose

WorldImages provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. It contains over 60,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery. WorldImages is accessible anywhere and its images may be freely used for non-profit educational purposes. The images can be located using many search techniques, and for convenience they are organized into some 600 portfolios which are then organized into subject groupings.

Digital collection drawn from the holdings of Akkasah, Center for Photography at NYUAD. Akkasah, the Center for Photography at New York University Abu Dhabi, is home to an archive of the photographic heritage of the Middle East and North Africa. The Center is dedicated to documenting and preserving the diverse histories and practices of photography from the region, and our growing archive contains at present over 60,000 images. Akkasah undertakes and supports research on Middle Eastern and North African photography, as well as on cross-cultural and transnational aspects of photography, through conferences, colloquia and publications, and through the research fellowship program of the NYUAD Institute. It also commissions new documentary projects from contemporary photographers that are archived alongside the Center’s historical collections, and it is establishing a special collection of photographic albums, as well as of original photobooks from around the world.

PHAROS is an international consortium of fourteen European and North American art historical photo archives committed to creating a digital research platform allowing for comprehensive consolidated access to photo archive images and their associated scholarly documentation.