Publicly Available Image Collections

This continuously-updated guide will help you navigate the world of publicly available online images. Hundreds of museums, universities, historical archives, and other cultural heritage institutions have digitized images from their rich collections and made them available to everyone. New collections are made available all the time, and it can be hard to keep track of all this digital treasure-- which is where this guide comes in handy. 

Can't I just use Google Image search?

Sure you can! And as you know from our Finding Images page, there are ways to conduct savvy Google Image searches that will filter out a lot of the noise & nonsense of the internet. 

There are, however, some very distinct advantages to using this guide to find images via specially curated collections:

• Quality: We strive to include collections that carefully follow current image digitization standards. Most feature high-quality, color-true images and will include reliable, factually accurate information about each. 
• Efficiency: Google Image searches will only work as well as the information associated with the image files, which can be arbitrary or inaccurate. If you're looking for, say, public art in Florida, you can wade through search results or go directly to the Public Art Archive's location map. 

Select a category at the left to get started!

While the images linked from this guide are free to view, they may not necessarily be free to download and use for academic or personal purposes.

For more information, see the Image Use and Citation section.