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From historical photographs to diagrams of chemical processes to reproductions of famous artworks, images can add not only color but also substance to any paper or presentation. Until recently, students wishing to incorporate images in their research projects needed to make photocopies of pictures and illustrations from books and journal articles, often losing color and quality in the process. This is still necessary at times, since books and journals contain many unique illustrations that would be hard to find on the Internet. But with the increased availability of images online, whether on websites or article databases, it is much easier to capture high-resolution electronic images and transfer them into programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft PowerPoint for editing and eventual inclusion in your work.
The guide below discusses several ways for locating electronic images, while emphasizing the importance of always citing the website or online article from which you retrieve images.
Many of the e-reference books at Geisel Library allow searching for images. For example, you can search the image captions of all pictures and illustrations in Gale Virtual Reference Library titles, including the following books:
Encyclopedia of Bioethics
Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice
International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family
New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd Edition
New Dictionary of the History of Ideas
To search for images in these e-reference books, click on the Advanced Search option. Use the drop-down box to select "Image Caption" as your search field, and enter one or two keywords representing the person, event, place, etc. for which you want an illustration. In the search results screen, click on article titles and skim the articles for an image that will meet your needs. If you find an illustration that you want to download, right-click on it, select "Save Image/Picture As" and save the file as a JPEG. Be sure to write down all the standard bibliographic citation information for the article (author, title, publication date, etc.), so that you can cite the source of the image.
Several of our databases contain rich repositories of searchable, downloadable images.
Academic Search Premier
This database of popular and scholarly journal articles also enables you to search the photographs, maps, and other illustrations embedded in those articles. Click on the "Images" link in the bar at the top of the screen. Enter keywords corresponding to your subject, and if desired, use the checkbox limiters to narrow the focus to a particular kind of image. In the results screen, click on the thumbnails to view larger images, and right-click to download.
ARTstor
ARTstor is a searchable database of over 300,000 digital images, encompassing architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, and the decorative arts from a number of famous museum collections. Although obviously relevant for Fine Arts courses, this database also contains numerous portraits, paintings, and photographs of historical figures, Biblical characters, writers, and thinkers. Type keywords in the Basic Search box (or used the Advanced Search to apply limiters), and follow the onscreen instructions to view and download images.
Grove Art Online
This database provides access to the full contents of The Grove Dictionary of Art and The Oxford Companion to Western Art, two highly-regarded multi-volume reference resources in the fine arts. The articles include over 3,000 thumbnail art images that can be downloaded for use in presentations. Click on Images and then on Illustrated Articles to see a listing of articles that contain embedded images. You can also "search image links" by either artist, title, or time period to search among 40,000 art images available on the websites of museums worldwide.
New York Times (Historical)
Although historical newspaper articles provide valuable first-hand perspective on events as they unfold, the editorial cartoons and advertisements in those old newspapers can often prove just as illuminating to researchers. This database permits you to do keyword searching on many of the cartoons and ads that have appeared in the New York Times since 1851. In the Advanced Search screen, click the link for "More Search Options" near the bottom. Use the drop-down box to select the desired document type: Classified Ad, Display Ad, Editorial Cartoon, or Photo Standalone. Then in the search fields above, enter appropriate keywords for your subject and apply date limiters if desired. You can download images as PDF files. Note that image searching is most successful in older issues; in more recent editions, many photos and ads have been blocked due to copyright considerations.
Of course, the most extensive resource for photographs, illustrations, and other images in electronic form is the Internet. Any image can be easily downloaded for use in a paper or presentation by right-clicking on it, selecting "Save Picture/Image As", and saving the file as a JPEG.
Make sure that you write down the URL, page author, page title, and other identifying information for the webpage so that you can properly document the source of the image. Also look for any information indicating who is responsible for the image (for example, the name of the photographer or illustrator) so that you can give that person or organization their proper credit. If the website specifies any restrictions or conditions on using the images, please abide by them.
The following is a selection of websites worth exploring.
Ad*access
Emergence of Advertising in America (Duke)
These companion websites from Duke University provide over 15,000 searchable images of U.S. magazine and newspaper advertisements from 1850-1955.
American Memory Project (Library of Congress)
The American Memory project consists of over 100 collections of digitized documents, photographs, and other items, which can be searched with keywords or browsed by topic. Photographic collections cover many aspects of American history, including the women's suffrage movement, the Great Depression, the Civil War, and the Japanese American internment during World War II.
Artcyclopedia
This free indexing page provides links to over 180,000 art images maintained on over 2,000 art websites (including the sites of many museums and collections from around the world). Search by artist, title, or museum, and click on the results to directly access the digital images of relevant artworks.
Google Image Search
Search for photographs, illustrations, and artworks from across the Internet, using Google's well-known keyword search engine.
Government Resources for Science Images (Library of Congress)
This page links to the best government resources for viewing and downloading science-related images, including NASA photographs, the CDC's public health image gallery, and image collections from the US Geological Survey. Many are in the public domain and can be freely used for any purpose.
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
The NYPL has undertaken a massive effort to digitize its collection of images, resulting in this online database of over 500,000 prints, photographs, illuminated manuscripts, maps, and vintage posters. You can search by keyword or browse by subject.
Web Gallery of Art
This "virtual museum" offers digital images of European artwork spanning the 12th to mid-19th centuries. You can search by artist or title, and click on the thumbnail images to view large browser-filling versions of each painting or sculpture.
As repeatedly stressed in the preceding sections, it is just as important to document your image sources as it is to cite the books and articles you used in your research. Documenting a source acknowledges that the photograph, illustration, diagram, etc. is the rightful intellectual property of its creator. Normally, the citation for an image is placed immediately beneath the image in your paper or PowerPoint slide, NOT in the bibliography as with other source materials. The form of the citation will depend on the type of resource (book, article, or website) and the citation style requested by your professor (APA, MLA, Chicago style, or another format). See the links below for guidance.
How to Cite Graphical Materials (Dartmouth)
An example of how to cite an image.
How to Cite Your Sources
Use the library's citation guides to determine how to cite the book, article, website, etc. from which the image was taken.
If you plan to use the image in a class presentation, term paper, or course-related project, you do not need to obtain copyright clearance. For such educational or instructional uses, you only need to document the image source as described above. However, be sure to comply with any stipulations on the provider's website that restrict the use, reproduction, distribution, or modification of images. In general, you are NOT permitted to redistribute the image on a wide scale (i.e., beyond the confines of the classroom) or to utilize the image for monetary gain.
Compiled by Jeffrey Waller
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