NEW YORK.- For nearly 90 years, New York’s artistic and educational community has found a valuable and dependable source of inspiration in a unique resource at The New York Public Library: the Picture Collection. Housed on the third floor of the Mid-Manhattan Library since 1982, the more than one million images there are at the disposal of some 140,000 visitors each year, fueling the creativity of commercial artists and illustrators, fashion designers, scenic designers and art directors for theater and film, as well as teachers and students at schools of fine and applied arts. Now, through a major initiative to digitize 30,000 images by the end of 2003 in some of the most popular subject areas, people can tap into this resource from any computer via the Internet, by simply logging onto picturecollection.nypl.org.
Organized into more than two dozen subjects -- including, for example, African Americans, American History, Costumes, Fashion Drawings, New York City, Dragons, and Animals -- the digitized images date from the 1700s through the first quarter of the 20th century, and are drawn from the Picture Collection’s vast reference holdings of images clipped from books, newspapers, and magazines. The online database also includes digitized copies of original photographs, prints, and postcards from the collection.
“The purpose of the Picture Collection Online is to make these valuable visual resources more widely and readily available, so that our many users can browse the collection from the comfort of their home, school, office, or studio,” said Mary K. Conwell, Director of The Branch Libraries. “These easily accessible digital images -- which document local history, costumes of various dates and places, and a variety of other topics -- should prove to be an important creative tool for anyone seeking visual ideas.”
Three [New York City] park employees catching a big snake, 1906. The New York Public Library, The Branch Libraries. Picture Collection.
While the visitors to the Mid-Manhattan Library’s physical Picture Collection are typically professionals and students from New York City and the tri-state area working in the creative arts, the Picture Collection Online can be accessed and used by anyone and at any time. Teachers and students, including those in elementary and secondary school, will find a ready resource for use in the classroom: the images, which are not readily available anywhere else, record the history and culture of people and places around the world, and they also demonstrate how the artists and photographers who created them saw the world in which they lived.
NEW YORK.- For nearly 90 years, New York’s artistic and educational community has found a valuable and dependable source of inspiration in a unique resource at The New York Public Library: the Picture Collection. Housed on the third floor of the Mid-Manhattan Library since 1982, the more than one million images there are at the disposal of some 140,000 visitors each year, fueling the creativity of commercial artists and illustrators, fashion designers, scenic designers and art directors for theater and film, as well as teachers and students at schools of fine and applied arts. Now, through a major initiative to digitize 30,000 images by the end of 2003 in some of the most popular subject areas, people can tap into this resource from any computer via the Internet, by simply logging onto picturecollection.nypl.org.
Organized into more than two dozen subjects -- including, for example, African Americans, American History, Costumes, Fashion Drawings, New York City, Dragons, and Animals -- the digitized images date from the 1700s through the first quarter of the 20th century, and are drawn from the Picture Collection’s vast reference holdings of images clipped from books, newspapers, and magazines. The online database also includes digitized copies of original photographs, prints, and postcards from the collection.
“The purpose of the Picture Collection Online is to make these valuable visual resources more widely and readily available, so that our many users can browse the collection from the comfort of their home, school, office, or studio,” said Mary K. Conwell, Director of The Branch Libraries. “These easily accessible digital images -- which document local history, costumes of various dates and places, and a variety of other topics -- should prove to be an important creative tool for anyone seeking visual ideas.”
Three [New York City] park employees catching a big snake, 1906. The New York Public Library, The Branch Libraries. Picture Collection.
While the visitors to the Mid-Manhattan Library’s physical Picture Collection are typically professionals and students from New York City and the tri-state area working in the creative arts, the Picture Collection Online can be accessed and used by anyone and at any time. Teachers and students, including those in elementary and secondary school, will find a ready resource for use in the classroom: the images, which are not readily available anywhere else, record the history and culture of people and places around the world, and they also demonstrate how the artists and photographers who created them saw the world in which they lived.
