Library Research Guides: ENG R398 Culture Identity and Rhetoric of Place: Find Images & Resources for Historic Structures

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American Landscape & Architectural Design, Collection of approximately 2,800 lantern slides representing an historical view of American buildings and landscapes built during the period 1850-1920.

ARTstor A digital image library of over 2.5 million digital images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences. PLEASE NOTE: to save or download images, users must register for an individual account.
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Users who create an account also gain access to a set of tools for sharing images, curating groups of images, downloading them directly into PowerPoint presentations, and comparing and contrasting images.

ARTstor Digital Panoramas ARTstor and Columbia University have collaborated to share nearly 1,300 QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) panoramas of world architecture.

Bridgeman Education Online digital library of images sourced from over 8,000 locations covering the world’s major museums, art collections, and historical sites. Includes access to over 3 million images, all copyright-cleared for educational use.
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Cities/Buildings Image Database A collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world, intended for educational use.

Image Collection A searchable collection of images ranging from photographs and maps to illustrations and etchings.
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The Image Collection contains over 100,000 images and consists of a wide range of photos and maps, with an emphasis on world news and events. Other areas include contemporary and historical photos of people, places and the natural kingdom.
Image Collections Online
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Image Collections Online showcases image collections curated by libraries, archives, and other cultural-heritage institutions of Indiana University.
Image Collections Online (ICO) includes a variety of historical photographs and images of cultural objects from the Lilly Library, the IU Archives, the Archives of African American Music and Culture, the Liberian Collections, the IU Map Collections, and others. Collection managers interested in submitting their collections for inclusion in ICO should contact the IU Libraries' Digital Collections Services department.
Oxford Art Online Encyclopedia articles about artists, architects, and artistic movements & periods, as well as bibliographies for further research. Also includes thousands of searchable images.
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Provides access to Oxford’s art reference works, including the Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and the Oxford Companion to Western Art.

Art & Architecture A database of approximately 40,000 images from the Conway and Witt Libraries of the Courtauld Institute.
Art Institute of Chicago Architecture and Design
A collection of 250,000 objects grounded in works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier.
Flickr Commons
Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
NYPL Digital Collections
The New York Public Library's Digital Collections contain over 800,000 digitized items featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
VADS: Visual Arts Data Service Images of rare and unique library, museum, and archives collections across the United Kingdom.
Wikimedia Commons
All images and other media files on this site are freely reusable without permission.

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970
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Access to Sanborn maps for all fifty states, large-scale plans containing data that can help estimate the potential risk for urban structures.
While they are in Black and White, instead of the original color, the Digital Sanborn Maps allow researchers to view and download the maps, integrate them in various GIS applications, and access them remotely. Sanborn maps provide house by house or business by business details for cities and towns throughout Indiana. They show the development of water works, school and government buildings, and transportation systems.

DNR: SHAARD State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database Allows users to search information on known historic resources throughout Indiana.
Library of Congress: HABS Historic American Buildings Survey The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies.