Library Guides: English 4250/7250: 19th-Century English Literature: Secrets and Scandals: Visual Resources

Finding Images

There are a variety of databases and websites that collect online images. Images may be tagged or described in a variety of ways, so search possibilities will vary. ARTStor is probably the most sophisticated site, designed as a slide library, with options for limiting by geographic area and date as well as by subject, medium, etc. Be aware that not all images are free to use without permission. Many sites have an option to limit to those freely available for reuse.

ARTStor
A digital library of images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images. Integrated with JSTOR, which includes access to scholarly journals in the arts and sciences.
Partial funding was provided by the Student Fee Capital Improvement Committee.

Date Coverage: Varies

Maximum Users: Unlimited

Truncation:
Truncation: *; Wildcard: _

User's Guide: https://guides.jstor.org/images

Openverse
A growing collection of over 600 million items available for reuse.
Google Images
Google search dedicated to finding images. Many, but not all, are free to reuse.
Google Arts & Culture
An additional way to search cultural artifacts by theme, place, color, etc.
Internet Archive image search
A very wide variety of images.
Europeana
Explore the museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections from over 150 institutions across Europe.
The British Museum collections
Online collection from Britain and around the world.
Victoria & Albert Museum collections
Online collections of a wide variety of objects and art works.
University of Michigan Guide to Images
A very extensive guide to all sorts of images.

Images can also be found within the online publications that we have. The advanced search features of most of these have options for limiting to articles containing illustrations, cartoons, advertisements, etc.

British Periodicals
Offers facsimile page images and searchable full text. In the lower part of the search screen are options to limit to advertisements, covers, graphics, or articles containing illustrations, cartoons, comics, maps, or photos.
Date coverage: 17th - early 20th century.
The Times Digital Archive
The advanced search provides a limit to "illustrated works" of various sorts. Scroll down to the very bottom of the search screen.

Hathi Trust - images
There are two ways to search for images within the Hathi Trust Digital Library. In the advanced search, in the lower part of the screen, you can limit to several visual formats. "Photographs & pictorial works" retrieves books that are at least 50% pictorial. "Visual material" retrieves individual photographs or other visual works. You can also include the term "illustrations" or the abbreviation "ill." in a full text search to find things that are primarily text, but include illustrations.
Internet Archive advanced search
Search for illustrations within books by including "illustrations", "illus." or "ill." in the description field or the full text.

Of course, you may find illustrations in printed resources too. Scanners are located near the top of the stairs from the West entrance (Speaker's Circle) and our Digital Media and Innovation Lab can help with any formatting issues.

Copyright Concerns

Images, especially if they lean more toward the creative than the factual/documentary, are more protected under copyright than other materials.

If an image was published before 1927, it is in the public domain and free to reuse. Some later images may also be in the public domain, but determining this takes some investigation.

Images found on the internet may be free to reuse, but the default is that they are protected. Some may be designated for reuse under certain conditions through license agreements, such as a Creative Commons license, or a license negotiated by the libraries.

Fair use allows for educational reuse of images, especially if they are the subject of discussion or comment (not just decorative) and if the audience is limited to those in the class for the duration of the course only. If you would like to display or reuse an image for a wider audience, say on an open website, or in a publication, we should check on licensing and permissions. We can help with this.