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Michael Schwartz Library

Virtual Reference Desk: Images

  • American Memory - Historical Collections for the National Digital Library: Documents, photos, audio files, moving pictures and texts from Library of Congress. You can chose "Browse" and then limit to collections containing photos or prints.
  • ARTstor: Searchable database of digital images and associated information, with new image collections added several times a year. Users can search, view, download and organize images. Available on campus or by remote authentication.
  • The Cleveland Memory Project: Virtual Cleveland history: images, text, maps and more about the history of Cleveland, Ohio from the Special Collections of Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University. You can browse or use the search feature.
  • Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery: Offers direct access to selected resources from the collections of the Cleveland Public Library. Includes a "Gallery of Cleveland Photographs" and other image collections.
  • Cleveland State University - Michael Schwartz Library Research Guides:
    • Art and Architecture - Images: Links to vetted image sites and information about copyright. Includes links to sites such as Google Art Project and the Web Gallery of Art.
    • Public Domain and Open Access - Images: Links to vetted open access sites for images and information about copyright. Includes such sites as the Getty Search Gateway, flickr, morgueFile, and Clicker.
  • Digital Resource Commons: A nationally recognized, award-winning statewide digital platform for saving, discovering and sharing Ohio’s historical and scholarly materials. From OhioLINK.
  • Freeimages.com: An alternative to sites that offer expensive stock photography, this site provides a community where creative people can exchange their photos for inspiration or work. Requires free registration; over 300,000 free photos and illustrations.
  • Google Image Search: "The most comprehensive image search on the web." Use Search Tools to limit by qualifiers such as size, type or usage rights. Research an image using the camera tool in the search box. See Reverse Image Search for instructions on how to best do this.
  • Library of Congress - Picture Catalogs Online: Links to approximately 50 selected searchable databases from libraries, archives, museums and commercial sources that focus on photographs, prints, and drawings.
  • LIFE Photo Archive Hosted by Google: Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art: More than 375,000 images of public-domain artworks in the museum's collection available for free and unrestricted use.
  • OAIster: A union catalog of digital resources. Available on campus or by remote authentication.
  • Ohio Memory: A collaborative statewide digital library project of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio, with digital collections from over 360 cultural heritage institutions representing all of Ohio's 88 counties.
  • Pics4learning.com: Providse copyright friendly images for use by students and teachers in an educational setting.
  • Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress): Contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress.
  • Time & Life Pictures: A variety of images from major magazines, photos, art collections; registration required.
  • Yahoo Image Search: Allows you to limit by color, size, type and license.