NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 28 number 3 - Spring 2008

Design Library Images Available in ARTstor

By Karen DeWitt, Design Library

Images from the Harrye B. Lyons Design Library Image Database are now available as an institutional collection in ARTstor. Faculty and students who use ARTstor in their classes can now easily access the Design Library images and incorporate them into presentations. In addition, accessing the Design Library Image Collection through ARTstor gives patrons using this collection much more sophisticated presentation tools.

The Design Library Image Database has more than 40,000 digital images covering art, architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, and graphic design. The collection is primarily a teaching collection for the College of Design and was originally based on the slide collection in the Design Library. Many of the images are unique or difficult to find; the collection is particularly strong in graphic design and also has a substantial collection of architecture images. Barbara Brenny, the visual resources librarian, continues to add digital images to enrich the collection.

ARTstor is a digital image database with over a half-million images and sophisticated organizational and presentation tools for users. Founded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ARTstor works closely with museums and other image providers and has collections that include images from art, architecture, and the humanities and social sciences. The collection also includes a number of Quicktime VR virtual reality movies that recreate the interiors and exteriors of a number of iconic buildings and locations. In addition to images and Quicktime VR, the ARTstor database provides users with tools to create folders and groups of images that interest them and to use these images in presentations or classroom teaching. Using ARTstor's Offline Image Viewer, faculty and students can create image presentations that they can load onto a flash drive or other portable hardware and can add their own images and text into a presentation.

Users accessing ARTstor from campus or after logging in and being identified as NCSU patrons now have Design Library images automatically included in any search in ARTstor, making it much easier for faculty or students to include these images in presentations. Alternatively, users also may limit searches to the Design Library collection. All Design Library images are available for use with the Offline Image Viewer or any of the other presentation or organization tools in ARTstor. Design Library images are only available to North Carolina State University affiliates and will not become part of the larger ARTstor collection.