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Brooks Library Research Guides: Images Online & in Databases
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Includes original short entries and examples of art movements, as well as a search engine indexing other websites on artists, museums, and the titles of artworks. You can also browse by medium, subject, nationality and women artists. Lists nearly 9,000 artists and nearly 3,000 art websites.
This encyclopedia shows images of gods, goddesses and other mythical creatures tied to myths, religions and folklore known across the globe. Searchable by six geographical regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Oceania.)
Finding Scholarly Journal Articles
Art Full Text™ describes itself as "a comprehensive resource for art information featuring full-text articles from more than 300 periodicals dating back to 1995,...indexing and abstracting of over 600 periodicals dating as far back as 1984,...as well as indexing and abstracting of over 13,000 art dissertations. Indexing of almost 200,000 art reproductions...The database covers fine, decorative and commercial art, folk art, photography, film, and architecture..." For a broader but less subject specific search, use the "choose databases" link, in tiny blue print above the search boxes, to create a combined search with other Ebsco databases such as Academic Search Complete.
A pathfinder is a topical guide that helps you locate resources online and in libraries. This pathfinder, by the Internet Public Library, highlights main places to try for finding art images, including many that are available online.
The AdViews digital collection provides access to thousands of historic commercials from the 1950s through the 1980s. The collection may be searched by Company, Title, or Subject. AdViews videos may also be viewed through iTunes, the Internet Archive, and YouTube.
AdViews is one of several interrelated collaborative projects; click these links for additional treasures:
- The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
- The Duke University Libraries Digital Collections Program
- The Archive of Documentary Arts, and
- The A/V geeks
Digital Collections from Brooks Library Archives and Special Collections at Central Washington University.These digital collections highlight the history, nature and culture of Central Washington University and the central Washington region, as well as rare materials connected to the history of the book. Titles of Digital Collections include: CWU Yearbooks, University Campus Buildings, Rufus Woods Photographs, Edward Nolan Photographs, Thorp Mill, 1977 Women's Conference, Frederick Krueger Photographs, Music (Dept.) Newsletters, Board of Trustees Minutes, and Illuminated Manuscripts. Also made available through this website, but created and physically housed at Ellensburg Public Library, are two collections: Ellensburg History, and Roslyn Black History.
Materials from the University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Faculty and Departments, and organizations that have participated in partner projects with the UW. Collections are primarily pictorial, although some have accompanying essays and text. Other media are presented, such as newspapers, reports, pamphlets, posters and maps. The emphasis of these collections is on rare and unique materials and it is a great resource for Pacific Northwest history topics.
The Ad*Access Project presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.
To look for advertisements within any one of the five primary categories, select "Browse" beside the category name. Then you may either choose any of the displayed subcategories or you may use the "Search this Collection" search box in the upper left to enter keywords or specific years.
The advertisements on this web site have been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. For these purposes under Fair Use you may reproduce (print, make photocopies, or download) materials from this web site without prior permission. Good scholarship requires providing proper attribution of the source in all copies.
The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
American Memory is the Library of Congress’s digital collection of American historical materials. Containing more than 9 million items, American Memory is organized into more than 100 thematic collections based on the original format, subject, or who first created, assembled, or donated them to the Library.
The original formats include manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music. Each online collection is accompanied by a set of explanatory features designed to make the materials easy to find, use, and understand. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or you may search across multiple collections, by region, and by date.
American Memory will continue to expand online historical content as an integral component of the Library of Congress’s commitment to its mission "to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations".
From the homepage: "AwesomeStories is a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose - since the site was first launched in 1999 - is to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, museums, historical societies and government-created web sites....This educational teaching/learning tool is also designed to support state and national standards. Each story on the site links to online primary-source materials which are positioned in context to enhance reading comprehension, understanding and enjoyment." In this website, you'll find that the images are well-explained with stories. At the time this website was added to the subject guide, login was not required (but it is free).
Images taken from fashion magazines and collected by Blanche Payne, a former professor in the School of Home Economics at University of Washington. The collection includes images of French and English dress from roughly 1806 to 1915. Browseable by subject, time period (from Empire to Edwardian) and by "Fashion Trends".
The LIFE magazine has placed their collection of photos and images--many of them never before seen--online and hosted by Google. Some of the images can go back as far as the 1750s. A regular Google Image search will include these LIFE images, but to search the LIFE archive exclusively you can add "source:life" to any Google image search. However, I recommend going directly to the LIFE webpages, where you can search images chronologically by decades, or topically by events, people, places, sports, and culture.
NASA paired up with Internet Archive to offer the public a searchable database of both historical and recent NASA images. Topics include early flight, women in flight, presidents, spacecraft, planets and the universe. the website functionality is impressive in its simplicity. Scroll over the timeline to select images by subject / year.
Some 600,000 digital images from within the NYPL's collections. Browse by subjects alphabetically listed or by suggested disciplines. Look at this website if you need images of postcards, posters, photographs, etc. of technological changes, specific people and historic events throughout America...not just New York.
Takes you to WSU MASC's digital collections homepage. There you will find an annotated listing of links to projects and digital collections now available online. Useful for finding primary sources such as maps, photographs, newspaper clippings and even early film on topics in Pacific Northwest history.
Links to websites showcasing or discussing political cartoons, both recent and from the past.
H.E.A.L. is a library of online images useful for teaching health sciences. It includes over 22,000 resources (images, video clips, animations, presentations and audio files); all images are freely accessible, peer-reviewed and searchable using the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) or by collection or keyword.
Part of the website "Mother of all Art and History Links" this portion of the site--Image Collections and Online Art--is a portal to other online collections. It has links to websites covering all art formats and searchable by geographic region (African & the African Diaspora, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Islam, Classical World of the Mediterranean) by format (Photography) and by location (Collections, Galleries & Sources).
"Images related to nature and the environment. The library's collections include photographs of plant and animal species, scenic landscapes, wildlife management, and biological fieldwork. Submitted by the NBII and numerous partners, most images are freely available for general, educational, and scientific use." NOTE: The size of the pictures are rather large and take awhile to download.
OAIster is a catalog more than 25 million records of open access digital resource. The Catalog was built by harvesting information from open access collections around the world The digital resources in OAIster include items such as digitized books and articles, born-digital texts, audio files, images, and movies.
The OAIster Catalog is searchable by title, author/creator, subject, language, keyword and several other forms of metadata. Searching in the OAIster Catalog is by Boolean Search (And, Or, Not). Like playing chess the best way to become good at boolean searching is to do a lot of boolean searching. Here are the 'basic moves' for searching the OAIster Catalog:
Combining the search terms 'Cat' and 'Dog' (Boolean)
Cat and Dog
Cat or Dog
Cat not Dog
Note: 'and', 'or', & 'not' are in drop-down boxes to the left of the search boxes.
Plurals, truncation, and wildcards
Use + for plurals (s and es)
Use * for truncation
Use # for a wildcard character
Use ?N for up to N characters
Adjacent terms (proximity)
Cat w Dog (Cat is followed by Dog)
Cat wN Dog (Cat is followed by Dog with at most N terms between)
Cat n Dog (Cat is next to Dog, either order)
Cat nN Dog (Cat is within N terms of Dog, either order)
The available Limiters are Year, Document Type, and Language. A Basic Search and an Expert Search interface is also available. You can also create an account that will enable you to save searches.
NOTE: Sometimes OAIster may direct you to items that are access restricted. The Librarians in the ARC or at any of the service desks can help you with accessing information that is ‘access restricted’ and with any questions that you might have.
From the U.S. Fish & Wildlife website: [this gateway contains the] "...National Image Library--the Service's collection of public domain still photos. You may search all the images through the National Image Library link, or you may search by individual collections, which are listed underneath." The collections are divided up by regions as well as an historic image library. You can search using the search engine or by browsing a list of keywords. All images in these databases are copyright free and available in the public domain.
Collection of almost 170 images of plants from Western Washington state. Searchable; or browse by Latin or common name. Records include plant description, habitat, flower color, plant height, leaf structure, and many other details. From the University of Puget Sound.
= Restricted resource
= Some full text
= OpenURL enabled
= Images
= Video files
= Audio files
Ginny Blackson
Librarian, Head Of Collection Development
Tel: (509) 963-1306
- Pictures
- Call #s NC997 through NC1003 Commercial Art
- Call #s NC1 through NC1940 Drawing
- Call #s NC1300 through NC1766 Caricature
- Call #s NC1800 through NC1850 Posters
- Call #s ND25 through ND3416 Painting
- Call #s ND 2890 through ND3416 Illuminating of manuscripts and books
- Call #s NE1 through NE3002 Print Media
- Call #s N4390 through N5098 Exhibitions
