Research Guides: Media & Design at UCBA: Images

Image Databases

The following are collections of digital images that include photographs, posters, graphics, and advertisements.

Ad*Access
The Ad*Access Project¸ funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund¸ presents images and database information for over 7¸000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio¸ Television¸ Transportation¸ Beauty and Hygiene¸ and World War II¸ providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University.
Advertising Archives: Historical & Current Print Ads
The Advertising Archives was established in 1990 by Larry and Suzanne Viner and is the largest and most comprehensive resource of its kind in Europe. The collection comprises over 1 million catalogued images, 50¸000 of which are searchable online. This includes press and TV advertising¸ magazine covers¸ cinema posters¸ ephemera¸ and comics and chidren's annuals.
JSTOR
JSTOR, which now has been merged with ArtSTOR, is a digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. It contains a wide range of scholarly journals, newspapers, and image collections from museums around the world.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
as of May 2021, 905,746 items digitized from NYPL collections.

Copyright Free Images

The following databases include copyrighted images that the creators offer free for others to use. You do not need to get permission, but you should give credit to the creator.

Free Pixels
Includes royalty free images and clip-art.
Wikimedia Commons
A database of over 13 million freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. It includes images, video and sound.