Need some free images for your academic work / poster / presentation / website? Look no further

By Ned Potter, Academic Liaison Librarian

We all need images for essays, presentations, posters, art-projects, and lots of other reasons, but we don't necessarily want to pay for them. Neither do we want to break the law by using copyrighted material we aren't allowed to reproduce. So where do we find them?

Public Domain images

Step forward CC0. Images which have been made Creative Commons Zero (also known as CCO) by their creators, are available to use by anyone, however they like. The images are in the Public Domain and can be reproduced, incorporated into other works, modified, and reused, without needing permission and in most cases without even needing to credit the author.

There are all sorts of advantages to using CC0 pictures. Firstly you know you're not going to fall foul of any copyright rules and break the law. Then there's the fact that if attribution isn't required, you don't have to take up space on your poster / slide / artwork / website with an author credit and a link to flickr or another website. Plus if your work finds an audience and ends up being sold, for example as part of a book, CC0 images are licensed for commercial use too. It's amazing! 

Although you don't HAVE to credit the creators of CC0 works it's still courteous to do so, as is crediting the site where you found the image. If you're citing the images in an essay or report, a proper reference will be needed just like anything else. 


A number of image sites offer CCO works. They are in two broad categories - artworks, and stock photography. We've listed some great sites of both types below: all of these cost no money to use, although you may have to set up free personal accounts with some of them to download high quality images. 

Free to use stock photography

Pexels
Pexels is the CC0 site I go to first when creating slides or websites. It's good on technology particularly, but covers loads of areas well, with stock photography that is far above the average stock shots. It has tens of thousands of pictures, including the ability to search by colour, and also has a sister site dedicated to CC0 video.

A selection of images from pexels.com

Stocksnap
Once you start using CC0 image sites you get used to seeing the same stock photography appearing on many of them (it comes with the territory, as the fact that the copyright has no restrictions means any site can pick them up and use them - you could start an image bank right now using CC0 images if you wanted to), but Stocksnap seems to have a few more pictures which are unique to it. Here's the 'recently added images' from today:

stocksnap.io selection

finda.photo
finda.photo (that's the actual URL as well as the name) searches through lots of other CC0 sites in one go, including the excellent UnSplash. As well searching by keyword you can browse by colour, collection, or original source.

Some of the 'glare' collection from finda.photo

Gratisography
Finally, for some pictures that are about as far away from tired stock photography cliches as it is possible to get, head over to Gratisography. Quirky, odd images, of extremely high resolution and quality, free to use in any way you see fit. There's really nothing quite like it.

Some pics from the truly unique gratisography.com

Free to use art and artwork imagery

• New York Met
  

  

  A 1565 Bruegel masterpiece, free for you to use as you wish, via The Met

  375,000 images of artworks from The Met's collection to use, share, and remix without restriction. And it's the New York Met, so they have some of the most famous paintings in the world, like Bruegel's The Harvestors from 1565.  

• Walters Art Museum
  

  Because the Walters owns or has jurisdiction over the objects in its collection and owns or customarily obtains the rights to any imaging of its collection objects, it has adopted the Creative Commons Zero: No Rights Reserved or CC0 license to waive copyright and allow for unrestricted use of digital images and metadata by any person, for any purpose.
• Riks Museum Amsterdam
  

  The Dutch Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam has opened its collection to the public with the majority of its photographed artwork being released under a CC0+ license that requires attribution. You must create a free account in order to download.
• Getty Museum
  

  Thousands of images of artworks are available for download, without charge, under the Getty's Open Content Program. Look for the Download button under the image. (You'll need to credit Getty when you use these, and when you download the image you'll be asked to describe their intended reuse.) 
• Yale Center for British Art
  

  The Center provides free and open access to images of works in the public domain and certain other materials, and hopes to encourage further the use and reuse of its public domain resources by all who may have access to them.
• Europeana Collections
  

  Europeana provides an extraordinary 8 million images which are completely free to re-use, covering the areas of Art, Fashion, Maps & Geography, Migration, Natural History, Music and others.

If you have any more suggestions for great CC0 sites, let us know with a comment below and we'll add them to the list.

The Battle of the Somme: part 2

Our understanding of the First World War has been shaped by the numerous artists, poets, writers and composers who recorded their experiences of the fighting. In the second of two posts, Ilka Heale highlights some of the men who fought in the Battle of the Somme (1st July - 19th November 1916).

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Image of Robert Graves: [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Poet and novelist, Robert Graves (1895-1985) is probably best known for the I, Claudius novels. In the First World War he fought alongside another war poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).

During the Battle of the Somme, Graves was struck by an exploding shell a few days before his 21st birthday leaving him so badly injured that he was reported dead by his commanding officer. However, by the time his obituary appeared in the British press, Graves had miraculously recovered. He was soon well enough to return to the front a few months later. Surviving the war, he went on to live until the age of 90.

William Noel Hodgson (1893-1916) was also a poet. Known as 'Smiler' to his friends due to his sunny disposition, he volunteered on the outbreak of the war in 1914. This poem Before Action was written in the weeks leading up to the Battle of the Somme. His battalion was ordered to advance across the downward slope of a hill, in full view of German trenches on three sides. They knew how slender their chances were. On 1 July 1916, Hodgson was killed in the opening minutes of the advance.

Taken from William Noel Hodgson: the gentle poet by Jack Medomsley.

Seen as a plea for courage in the face of death, this poem was originally published on 29 June 1916 in the weekly paper The New Witness. Hodgson died two days later. Hodgson's posthumous volume Verse and Prose in Peace and War, published in 1917, was so popular it ran into three editions.

John Buchan (1875-1940) was the author of the Thirty-nine steps, one of the most famous and influential adventure stories of the 20th century. During the First World War, Buchan worked at the War and Foreign Offices and was appointed Director of Information making a major contribution with the innovative use of propaganda. Published in 1916, Buchan wrote The Battle of the Somme, First Phase claiming that the battle was so successful that it marked the end of trench warfare. However he failed to inform his readers that of the 110,000 British soldiers who fought in the Battle, over 57,000 became casualties and 20,000 were killed on the first day of fighting.

Starting in 1914, Buchan also wrote the extensive Nelson's 'History of the war' published as a monthly magazine. This book, published in 1917, was intended to be a companion to the monthly volumes of 'History of the war' as it contained sketch maps illustrating the battles.

Herbert Ward (1863-1919) was a British sculptor, illustrator, writer and explorer. As Ward was too old to enlist in the army, he served with the British Ambulance Committee. Wounded at the front and mentioned in dispatches in 1915, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his work removing wounded soldiers whilst under bombardment. He died, partly as a result of his injuries, in August 1919.

Image from Mr Poilu by Herbert Ward

Mr. Poilu: notes and sketches with the fighting French was published in December 1916 as a tribute to the French as worthy allies. As described by Ward in chapter 1, Poilu was a nickname given to French soldiers. The illustrations, chiefly monochrome, depict not victory but land despoiled and soldiers standing alone, their faces all aged by a war which must inescapably be fought despite the losses already incurred.

British Composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) was best known for The Banks of Green Willow and his musical settings for the poems of A.E Housman.

Written in 1913, The Banks of Green Willow is a short pastoral idyll. It has become almost a symbol of that long-lost halcyon Edwardian age, as if Butterworth were transcribing the disappearing world around him.
 Butterworth had joined up at the outbreak of war and during the Battle of the Somme was awarded the Military Cross for capturing a series of trenches near Pozières. On 4th August 1916, his unit was ordered to attack a communications trench and despite successfully capturing it, he was shot by a German sniper and died on 5th August.

There is an exhibition of items from the University Library's collections on the ground floor of the Fairhurst Building. To find material on First World War, search YorSearch, our Library catalogue.

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The photographs of the books in the University Library's collections were taken by the University photographer, Paul Shields.

Flying squirrels and medieval knights: the John Heath Collection

Matthew Wigzell explores the recently catalogues John Heath Collection

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Tales of a medieval knight, the writings of a Swiss pseudo-scientist, and an illustration of the hooded flying squirrel. There may seem to be no apparent link, but all of these can be found in a wonderful new collection of books recently added to the Library's Special Collections.

The collection was amassed by former British diplomat Sir John Heath (1922-2009), who acquired examples of books illustrated by his ancestors, including the well-known engraver James Heath (1757–1834). The books were left to the University in Sir John's will and have now been fully catalogued and made available for study.

The collection, which is a wonderful glimpse into the late 18th and early 19th centuries, has books on a range of different subjects, with a particular focus on literature, early travel writing, and scientific subjects such as zoology (with some amazing illustrations of exotic animals).

As an added bonus, many of the items have been ornately bound, making this a research resource with great potential for those interested in the art of fine binding, antique book illustration, engravings and portraits.

We have also been recording unique information about items in the collection, including the presence of bookplates, signatures and other provenance information. We have a full set of Bell's Poets of Great Britain passed down through three generations of the Kirby family for example, and many of the books in the collection have personal reminders of former owners.

I have picked out three striking books from the collection which came cross my desk during the cataloguing process.

First up is The history of the valiant knight Arthur of Little Britain: a romance of chivalry. A medieval epic originally written in French, the book follows the hero Arthur doing battle with knights, dragons and other beasts, storming castles, and foiling dastardly plots at the royal court (think Game of Thrones written in Middle English). More striking though are the image plates; beautiful hand coloured book illustrations which show scenes from the text. They have some great details, and some of the battle scenes are surprisingly graphic - seriously, take a look.

My second selection is an odd book on physiognomy - the 'science' of assessing a person's character from physical characteristics, particularly the face. Essays on Physiognomy was written by Johann Caspar Lavater, a Swiss writer and philosopher, and gained something of a cult following thereafter. Containing a series of engraved portraits, the accompanying text describes the character of each portrait, and analysis of different parts of the face.

One unfortunate chap (pictured left) is characterised as having a face showing "Corrupt rudeness, and malignity, contemning morals. Natural power degenerates into obstinacy, in the forehead. Affection is far distant from this countenance. Insensibility usurps the place of courage, and meanness the seat of heroism…. The thing most pitiable in this countenance is an expression of the conscious want of power to acquire the degree of malignity it may wish, or affect to possess".

Even animals don't escape scorn. The hammer-head shark being "a monster, 2. How infinitely distant from all that can be called graceful, lovely, or agreeable! The arched mouth, with the pointed teeth, how senseless, intractable, and void of passion or feeling; devouring without pleasure or satisfaction! How inexpressibly stupid is the mouth of 3, especially in its relative proportion to the eye!".

The final example comes from a multi-volume set, General zoology or systematic natural history, by George Shaw. The set has some brilliant early 19th Century illustrations and descriptions of exotic animals, manly only recently discovered by explorers in Australia. The books describe a wide-range of mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and reflect the growing interest in zoology and recording of the natural world. My favourite is the truly terrifying Hooded Flying Squirrel.

There is also a wonderful anecdote about the platypus, and Shaw's (who was keeper of the natural history department at the British Museum) initial reluctance to include it in the book. The specimen at the museum was "the only one which had been seen, [and] it was impossible not to entertain some distant doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal … and there might still have been practiced some arts of deception in its structure … Two more specimens, however, having been very lately sent over from New Holland, the suspicions before mentioned are now completely dissipated".

All of the books in the Heath collection can be accessed through the Borthwick Institute for Archives, and can be found in the Library catalogue. From the Advanced Search option, you can perform a provenance search for John Heath.

Hopefully researchers and students find them as interesting to study as we did to catalogue.

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All photos taken by Paul Shields.

Art from across the globe

As our Art literature collection continues to expand, Stephen Town adds a splash of diversity to the selection.

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This week's donations contain an eclectic mix
of art and illustration

I spent last weekend going through my late mother’s book collections. She would never have called it a library, but it was very substantial and varied, reflecting her interests, profession, causes and beliefs. It incorporated my late father’s collection and those of both their forbears, spanning nearly a century of commitment to Yorkshire education, a family tradition which of course I also continue until my retirement.

I have selected four items from her collection to add to my donations, all relating to the history of art. Most of her books will go to broader charitable causes, as she would have wished, and her almost complete set of twentieth century crime writing may well be available for purchase in a charity shop near you very soon.

Beach & Koch: King of the World: the Padshahnama

My mother loved India and continued to visit well past the time the rest of the family considered it safe and sensible. This large and beautifully illustrated book was published on the occasion of the exhibition of the Mughal manuscript from the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. The exhibition, organised by the Sackler Gallery, travelled across India, the UK and USA in 1997-98 and was part of the 5oth Anniversary celebrations of the independence of India and Pakistan. The book was the first time these illustrations had been published.

Neil MacGregor: Seeing salvation: images of Christ in Art

The Art section in our Library also has the National Gallery work arising from the millennial exhibition on which this book is based. But this work was produced by the BBC and accompanied a TV series shown in 2000, concentrating on the history of the artistic depiction of Christ. Parts of the holidays of my childhood were spent in galleries and churches across Europe, as a cultural alternative to walking and climbing. My mother had a strong faith, but as MacGregor suggests, these images can still speak powerfully to non-believers.

Pinkney: William Morris in Oxford

Like Morris, my mother was an Oxford student. Also like Morris, she was a strong believer in social justice, although in her later years this was expressed more through liberalism than socialism. This book focuses on Morris’ later life in Oxford, covering what the author describes as his campaigning years, as he took up architectural and social causes to transform the University and City.

Higgins & Robinson: William de Morgan

De Morgan was an arts and crafts potter, and a lifelong friend of William Morris. We already have a selection of works on De Morgan in the Library at LG 8.3, and this slim but copiously illustrated book will further enhance our collection. The pages contain some previously unillustrated designs for tiles, stained glass and pots, showing off his ‘fabulous animals, rich florals and flowing Persian curves’.

Celebrating the York City Art Gallery donation.... with more art!

Stephen Town continues his Night Shelf donations with a bumper collection of titles from the history of art.

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Last week we welcomed York City Art Gallery staff and the Friends of the Gallery to a reception celebrating the donation of the Art Gallery’s book collection to the University Library. This has already been reflected in previous blog posts, but it has provided me with the opportunity to continue my own donations through a gift of five art history works from my own collection.

Photo: University of York reception to celebrate the donation
of the York City Art Gallery book collection to the Library (picture credit Paul Shields).

I hope that the books I am donating this week will supplement, in a small way, the acquisition of this substantial and rich Art Gallery stock. I accept that this is not really night shelf material, but Christmas calls for something special and personal, and for a combined gift to cover the weeks until I return in January.

One of the perceived difficulties for a relatively young University is to amass collections of the depth and breadth of more longstanding foundations. This is particularly true in the history of art field, in which, as Professor Prettejohn pointed out in the reception, physical books have a particular importance and weight, especially those with illustrations. The Art Gallery gift is therefore of great significance and value to the University’s academic work, as well as providing a new link to the wider York community. So I'd like to reiterate my thanks to the York City Art Gallery and all involved in the donation.

As a serious librarian, with at least some basic skills remaining, I did think to test the unique worth of my gifts against our own collections, including the York City donated collections, and also the national COPAC catalogue of seventy research university and specialist institutions. Fortunately all turn out to be unique additions to York.

Old Master Paintings from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection - exhibition catalogue

More than twenty-five years ago I was invited to a reception at the Royal Academy to view a collection of Old Masters from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. The invitation came through a potential library computer system supplier; this firm being part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Group of companies. Similar opportunities rarely arise these days as modern day procurement rules quite rightly frown on such generosities. (As it turns out, we didn't buy that library system in the end!)

Old Master Paintings - exhibition catalogue

The collection was created by successive Barons Thyssen, and at that time in 1988 was probably the second largest private collection in the world after the Queen’s. Now exhibited in its own gallery near the Prado in Madrid, the collection is particularly strong in landscapes and portraits, and includes Holbein’s striking depiction of Henry VIII. The Library also has a similar exhibition catalogue of modern masters from the same collection but this is a personal reminder of a wonderful evening, and a period when buying a library system was an exciting adventure requiring visits to exotic locations.

Masterpieces of the world’s great museums

Masterpieces of the World's
Great Museums, 1988
ISBN: 0600559149

The Prado Museum is one of those featured in this coffee table style book, among others including the British Museum, Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book contains good quality images of many of the western world’s most celebrated artworks, as well as plans of the museums as they displayed their collections in the late eighties (at the time of publication). Displaying these dispersed collections together not only provides a comprehensive introduction for those not already acquainted with the museums, but also gives those who have been fortunate enough to visit, an opportunity for contextualisation and re-evaluation.

Spanish painting – András Székely

Continuing the Spanish theme, this item is a real rarity, as there appear to be only four other locations of this work in the UK. The colour plates have been painstakingly added after the text printing. Coverage is from Mozarabic miniatures through to Miro and the Picasso works featured are from the Barcelona Museo; the most emotionally affecting collection I have personally experienced.

Myth and ceremony in Islamic painting

- exhibition catalogue

Myth and ceremony in Islamic
painting - exhibition catalogue

This apparently insignificant item covers an exhibition which I remember viewing, although I have no recollection of where and when. The national research libraries catalogue is as confused as I am; no-one wants to commit to a firm date or location for the exhibition, and there is no other copy of this catalogue in research libraries in the north of England. An almost throw-away attribution links it to J.M. Rogers, now Honorary Curator of the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and first holder of the Khalili Chair of Islamic Art at SOAS. Although the catalogue contains no images from the exhibition, it does give an interesting account of the history and development of Islamic art and its influencers.

La Dame à la Licorne

Paris is full of museums and art galleries, and one might be forgiven for tiring before reaching the Musee du Moyen Age at Cluny, the treasury of medieval art in Paris. The sumptuous and mysterious six tapestry panels of the Lady and the Unicorn are its bewitching and unforgettable centrepiece.

Photo: The Lady and the Unicorn by Terretta
Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

One of the most famous tapestries in the world, this book guides the reader through each element before offering a more in depth study of the piece's significance. Interpretations of its meaning are debatable, but enjoyment of the five senses, together with a rejection of those passions generated by ill-control of sensory pleasure, as conveyed in the six panels, might be a salutary message for Christmas celebrations.