viz.

Jonas Bendikson RUSSIA. Altai Territory. 2000. Image via Harry Ransom Center Exhibitions page.

Jonas Bendikson's photo, used in many of the Harry Ransom Center's promotional materials for their current exhibit "Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos in the Digital Age," caught my attention even before visiting the galleries. Before seeing it in person, the image reminded me, strange as it is to say, of the 1939 Technicolor version of The Wizard of Oz.

The following is a list of notable image databases and archives.

Click the 'Review' link to access a viz. review of the database.

General Image Databases

American Memory, hosted by the Library of Congress

British Library Images Online

Calisphere, hosted by the University of California

New York Public Library Digital Archives

Tineye, a reverse search engine through which users can learn more about images they already have

UNESCO Photobank, hosted by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization

US Government Photos and Images

Databases by topic in alphabetical order:

(*) denotes requires subscription or login and (W) denotes has institutional Watermark on images.

Advertising

AdAccess, hosted by Duke

Emergence of Advertising in America, hosted by Duke [viz. review]

African-American History

(W) Calvin Littlejohn Archive, hosted by Center for American History, UT-Austin [viz. review]

John H. White Portrait of Black Chicago, hosted by the National Archives [viz. review]

Art and Photography

(*) ARTstor Digital Library, hosted by ARTstor, Inc. Link for UT login.

(*) CAMIO (Catalogue of Art Museum Images Online), hosted by OCLC. Link for UT login.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs

National Veterans Art Museum

Body and Medicine

Historical Anatomies on the Web, hosted by The National Library of Medicine [viz. review]

Dream Anatomies, hosted by The National Library of Medicine [viz. review]

(W) Wellcome Images, hosted by The Wellcome Library, London [viz. Review]

World Health Organization Photo Library [warning: contains images that may be disturbing to non-medical audiences]

Commons & Public Domain Image Databases

Flickr, Creative Commons

Creative Commons Search

Library of Congress Flickr Stream

Search Flickr US Government Works License

Historic Prints

Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection, hosted by Yale [viz. review]

Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North America, hosted by Lewis and Clark [viz. review]

Labor

Red Scare Archive, hosted by CUNY [viz. review]

Labor Rights Archive, hosted by LaborArts.org [viz. review]

Tamiment Labor Archives Highlights on Flickr

Literature

(*) DASe (Digital Archive Services), hosted by Utexas Liberal Arts ITS

Maps

American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection

David Rumsey Map Collection  [viz. review]

Municipal Archives

(W) London Metropolitan Archives COLLAGE Image Database

New York City Municipal Archives Images Gallery [viz. review]

Seattle Municipal Archives

Music

(W) Texas Poster Art, hosted by the Briscoe Center at UT-Austin

National Archives

Images Canada

National Archives (UK) Image Library

National Archives (US) Galleries

Nature

NASA images

European Space Agency Images

NOAA Photo Library [viz. review]

Photography

Life Photo Archive, hosted by Google

William Gedney, hosted by Duke 

(W) (*) Magnum Photos, hosted by Magnum [Viz. Review]

(W) (*) Associated Press, hosted by AP [Review]

Symbols & Iconography

The Noun Project

Technology/Electronic Media

Radical Software, hosted by Radical Software  [Viz. Review]

Texas

Portal to Texas History, hosted by the University of North Texas

Image credit: Screen shot of Magnum Photos Digital Collection

H/T: Katherine Feo and George Royer

On Tuesday, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center announced that the Magnum collection of photographs would be catalogued, housed, and made accessible to scholars for research and to the public through exhibitions.  Magnum Photos was founded in 1947 by Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson and several other photographers as one of the first photographic cooperatives.  While the Magnum website hosts the “living archive” of over 500,000 images in a searchable digital library that is updated daily, the HRC will preserve and make available the nearly 200,000 original press prints including several vintage prints dating back more than 60 years.  In a press release announcing the partnership between the HRC, Magnum Photos, and the new owner of the original press prints, Michael S. Dell’s private investment firm MSD Capital, Dr. Tom Staley—director of the Humanities Research Center noted, "This is a singularly valuable collection in the history of photography [that] brings together some of the finest photojournalists of the profession and spans more than a half century of contributions to the medium.  We are delighted to make these remarkable materials accessible to researchers and students."