Much like software and hardware changes today, rapid advances in photographic technology often steamrolled the competition. The introduction of photography on the world scene is often compared with the public's adoption of the Internet as a new communications and artistic medium. In an essay on the impact of photography, eerily prescient of late 20th century French postmodernists, the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote, "...I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contributed much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce" ("Photography" [1859], Charles Baudelaire, in Photography: Essays & Images, edited by Beaumont Newall, 1980; online French transcription, "Le public moderne et la photographie," http://baudelaire.zy-va.com).

Baudelaire, as numerous artists, photographers, historians, and critics point out, was quite simply wrong, because his own fabled imagination could not transcend the narrow definition of art he used to premise his argument. Artists and photographers long ago, certainly by the early 1840s, came to peace with the new reality. Photography and art continue to retain both discrete and interdependent spheres of influence in human culture. Unlike the introduction of photography, where commercial applications were eagerly embraced and exploited, publicly funded academic institutions and governments were at the forefront of the digital revolution when it came to the digitization of historical photographs. Commercial operations, such as Corbis and the Hulton/Archive, although sometimes more sophisticated in terms of search strategies and e-commerce capabilities than their academic and government counterparts, only followed after the public infrastructure and the public appetite for digital imagery were in place. Today's historical photograph researcher can quickly access millions of photographs right back to the earliest-known images from France's Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.

In the January 2002 issue of Searcher, Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo's excellent background article, "When Image Is Everything" [https://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jan02/tomaiuolo.htm] introduced readers to the ability of some popular search engines to search and display various types of graphical file formats. He also identified some specialized engines that focus on this kind of service. Typically, images appear in the predominant JPEG (JPG) and GIF formats. Tomaiuolo's background article did not cover two additional formats developed specifically for the Web: Portable Network Graphics (PNG) and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). [Details about the PNG format appear at http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/ and on Greg Roelof's site at http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/. Information on SVG appears at http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8 and http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Activity.]

As Tomaiuolo points out, general and specialty search engines will produce millions of matches for all kinds of images. But what about specialty images, for example, historical photographs? Tomaiuolo mentions two such photographs in his introductory paragraphs: a Matthew Brady daguerreotype and the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo taken on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University (Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley, "The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search For Historical Accuracy."Ohio Council for the Social Studies Review, vol. 34, no. 1, Summer 1998, pp. 9-21. Web version (accessed February 21, 2002) [http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/LEWIHEN.htm]. While one can use image search engines to retrieve historical photographs, the lack of precision caused by keyword searching and the limitations of the general search engines to target historic photographs lead to wasted time and effort. Other search strategies described here, including descriptions of specific Web sites at the international and national levels, should yield more immediate results for those researching historical photographs and the history of the medium.

What constitutes a historical photograph? Measured by impact, a photograph taken yesterday — or on September 11, 2001 — can be considered historic. For the purpose of this article, however, a historical photograph must be at least 20-25 years old. This span of time approaches the traditional generational boundary of 30 years and restricts discussion to images beyond the conscious memory of the youngest generation viewing the photograph.

Besides private individuals, businesses, and organizations that acquire and care for historical photographs for personal, commercial, or research interests, historical photographs are preserved by four different kinds of cultural institutions: archives, art galleries, libraries, and museums. In some cases these institutions combine functions; for example, a museum can house an archive or an archive can contain a library. These institutions are frequently operated by public bodies such as government agencies, but may also be run by private organizations, such as historical societies.
 

Descriptive Systems for Historical Photographs
Historical photographs were among the first category of artifacts, records, or documents to be digitized for presentation on the Internet. My own employer was among the first public archives in Canada to embark upon a large-scale digitization program for public access to its photograph collections. With the assistance of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria, the BC Archives implemented an on-site image database system in April 1993; Gopher and Web access followed in January 1995. [For details, see Web Site Reference: "More About the BC Archives," http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/general/backgrnd.htm (accessed February 21, 2002). BC Archives Web Site Statistics: http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/general/stats/statssum.htm.]

Different types of cultural institutions apply different strategies to search and retrieve digital facsimiles. Even where standards exist for describing or cataloging photographs, searchers will not always find these digital facsimile directly searchable using these standards. Many institutions rely upon unstructured keyword searching for the least precise but broadest form of retrieval.

The good news, however, is that photographs are generally described individually. Collection-level descriptions, when in existence, often link to individual online photographs that may include additional descriptive detail for each photograph within the collection. All of the Web sites described here allow keyword or character-based searching, usually by creator (for example, photographer), title, descriptive summary, or subject field. In sites such as the common interface developed for each of the Library of Congress' American Memory digital collections, some kind of controlled vocabulary for name or subject access is always available.

Even though the desirability of supporting date searching for historical photographs would seem obvious, not all databases allow this. For example, even though the photograph's date appears in the descriptive record, the National Archives of Canada's ArchiviaNet search tool does not allow one to search for a photograph by date of creation.

Because the four classes of cultural institutions preserving historical photographs have independently developed descriptive and retrieval systems, coordinated work on cross-domain databases has assumed even greater importance. Assuming the use of a higher-level metadata descriptive framework and a search protocol such as Z39.50, differences in descriptive systems should not matter much, especially for very simple searches, e.g., by photographer or personal name, place name, or an event.

Library, archival, and museum networks in North America are well developed, but operate, for the most part, independent of one another. Outside of the commercial search engines, which may or may not index cultural institution databases, only a few cross-cultural domain databases for historical photographs exist. One of the best examples so far is PictureAustralia. In the U.S., development of the SGML-Based Encoded Archival Description (EAD) [http://lcweb.loc.gov/ead/] assisted in the creation of at least one major cross-domain database, the Online Archive of California [http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu/oac/].

The emergence of the Web as an important communications media galvanized the international museum community into establishing new standards geared to the networked world. This work, unlike most of the archival and library systems already in place, is building on the common foundation of the Dublin Core standards. The Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) [http://www.cimi.org] and the Museum Computer Network [http://www.mcn.edu] are the two most active participants on this front.

Descriptive standards for art gallery collections have followed a pattern similar to the standards in the archival community: Competing interests define what most benefits each community of users. The Getty Standards Program, however, strongly influenced the development of cataloging standards for artwork, particularly in the area of subject vocabulary, name (artist and place) authorities. [See http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/index.html and http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/.] The guidance even extends to how-to manuals, e.g., Introduction to Imaging: Issues in Constructing an Image Database by Howard Besser and Jennifer Trant [http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/introimages/].

Established in 1972, the Art Libraries Society of North America [http://www.arlisna.org/] appears to follow library standards. [See the ARLIS/NA Cataloging Section Web site at http://www.stanford.edu/~kteel/arliscat.htm.] The Visual Resources Association [http://www.vraweb.org/], founded in 1982, created its own cataloging standard. The VRA Core Categories work with other descriptive standards, including electronic metadata such as the Dublin Core. Representatives from ARLIS/NA and the VRA met for the first time at a joint conference in March 2002.

Art and photographic history researchers should also know about ICONCLASS [http://www.iconclass.nl], a visual classification and descriptive system developed during World War II in the Netherlands by Henri van de Waal (1910-1972). Finally, as but one example of the variety of online resources devoted to the description, preservation, and access of historical photographs in their original, digital, and other formats, the SEPIA (Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access) project of the European Commission on Preservation and Access contains a searchable bibliography of close to 400 print and online works on caring for photographic collections [http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/].
 

Search Strategies
Many, if not all, photographic databases fall into what people call the Invisible Web, meaning the databases may not be directly searchable through external search engines. Nevertheless, online historical photographs are relatively easy to find, because the cultural institutions entrusted with their preservation have embraced the Internet and the Web for the presentation of historic data.

The following approaches to searching should work for locating collections of historic photographs. General keyword searching is not effective unless searching for a very specific kind of image, for example, a stereograph or a cyanotype, or when you have an event, place, or personal name, including the photographer, which will not produce many matches. In the case of historical photographs, specificity is a must.

Search for individual institutions through basic keyword searches or topical directories in a major search engine, such as Google, or a directory, such as Yahoo!. For example, for historical photographs, the two most relevant, general Yahoo! categories are "Arts > Visual Arts > Photography > History" (and its subcategories, including Photographers) and "Arts > Visual Arts > Photography > Exhibits >Historic." Besides looking for institutions likely to preserve historic photos, you can also try searching for the digital collections themselves, as well as associations dedicated to the history of photography and its technology, such as the Daguerreian Society [http://www.daguerre.org], the Photographic Historical Society of Canada [http://web.onramp.ca/phsc/], or the Royal Photographic Society [http://www.rps.org]. Commercial and academic sites developed by and for those interested in the history of photography also exist. City Gallery [http://www.city-gallery.com/] by Steve Knoblock was one of the first Web sites to target the photo collector. His site also supports the academic community by hosting the International Directory of Photography Historians [http://www.city-gallery.com/resource/hpg/index.html].

Online directories and networks of archives, libraries, museums, and art galleries can also constitute excellent choices for locating collections of historic photos. Use a geographic perspective to narrow your choices and start from that point. If you seek historic photographs of the Grand Canyon, try archives in Arizona. Think about who would have had occasion to produce photographs of people, landscapes, or events that interest you. Start with the photographer or agency responsible for the original photograph or the archival institution responsible for its preservation. Some of the earliest surviving photographs of the Grand Canyon were taken during exploratory surveys by individuals working under federal government sponsorship. Federal photographs in their original form are, for the most part, preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) or the original agency. A large number of online historic photographs are accessible through the NAIL (NARA Archival Information Locator) database described below.

Test searches of the search tools and individual Web sites described in this article were conducted in mid-February 2002. The sites listed here illustrate the wide variety of historical photographs available online and the techniques used to search the Web sites or databases describing these images.
 

Search Tools
Though certainly not exhaustive, this list describes some of the national and international search tools used to locate online historical photograph collections. Many digital library collections, such as the Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE, include links to other digital collections. So far as could be determined, there does not appear to be a single, comprehensive, current Web resource for locating all publicly accessible, digitized, historical photograph collections.

Canadian Archival Information Network (CAIN)
http://www.cain-rcia.ca/
The culmination of many years of work by Canadian archivists, CAIN unites into a single user interface several subnetworks of archival records databases operated at the provincial/territorial or interprovincial/territorial levels. Search fields in CAIN are based on the Canadian Rules for Archival Description. Searchers unfamiliar with what the various searchable fields could contain should probably use a basic keyword search. Subject headings, if assigned to archival records by the subnetworks, are not incorporated into the CAIN search interface. The records only describe photo collections, but include a hyperlink to the host institution. CAIN also links directly to each subnetwork.

Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), Artefacts Canada
http://www.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/e_artefacts_canada.html
The Humanities portion of this national database focuses on museums, art galleries, and heritage sites, where historical photographs may reside. Some of the museological descriptions have online images linked to the record. You can retrieve these online images by selecting the Image Contributors link in the contents frame on the left side of the search interface. Many of these images will download as JPEG files.

The Canadian Virtual Museum
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca
Similar to the 24HourMuseum in the U.K., this is a true virtual museum and guide to Canada's museums, galleries, and heritage attractions. Unlike the 24HourMuseum, the Canadian Virtual Museum includes a keyword-searchable Image Gallery with thumbnail illustrations of museum and gallery artifacts, including historical photographs.

Cornucopia: Discovering U.K. Collections
http://www.cornucopia.org.uk/
Under development by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives, and Libraries, this site contains a database describing the U.K.'s museum collections. The database does not as yet include the ability to limit searches by a medium, such as photography, but the database will denote a collection strength in photography. The database does not link to actual images.

Digital Library Federation, Public Access Collections
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=dlfcoll
Search or browse for descriptions of publicly accessible digital collections. The database holds at least 288 records describing such collections, records which display 25 at a time. Because the keyword search is phrase-based, multiple searches are necessary to uncover all instances of digitized photographs.

direct search
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm
Compiled by Gary Price, co-author with Chris Sherman of The Invisible Web (Information Today, 2001; http://invisible-web.net/], this site contains a site-search interface and categories of Web sites that offer searchable databases not crawled by the search engines. (When we checked it, the site had not been updated for many months.) Although photography is covered in the Images section of the Humanities category, the list, even by the last update of this site, does not include many of the highly visible public and private online historic photo collections listed below.

European Archival Network (EAN)
http://www.european-archival.net/
This search tool locates archives in Europe, Russia, and, through other links, elsewhere in the world. Collections are not described, only basic contact information is provided, along with a Web and e-mail address, should those exist, for each archive.

European Union, Community Research & Development Information Service (CORDIS), Information Society Technologies (IST), Digital Heritage and Cultural Content (DIGICULT)
http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka3/digicult/home.html
DIGICULT is one of the Key Action 3 domains of the IST program. It is as good a starting point as any to the bewildering array of European Union initiatives in the area of digitization of cultural artifacts and archival records. The IST Projects or the Project Themes pages provide links to research and other initiatives into digital libraries and the visualization of heritage and cultural artifacts and documents.

International Council of Museums, Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp)
http://www.icom.org/vlmp/
Browse or search for museums around the world by the kinds of collections preserved. Use the keyword "photographs" to find institutions preserving photographs. Selected archives, art galleries, and libraries are also represented in this directory.

International Federation of Library Association and Institutions (IFLA), IFLA Electronic Collections
http://www.ifla.org/II/index.htm
An extensive guide to the world of digital libraries in the form of annotated, subject-oriented bibliographies, this site is most useful for locating information about what kinds of digitization projects libraries are planning or have implemented.

Museum Computer Network (MCN)
http://www.mcn.edu/
The site includes an A-Z list of museum Web sites around the world — helpful as a starting point if you know the name of a specific museum. The eSpectra link contains many articles about the application of digitization techniques to museum and art gallery collections. Use the MCN Topical Guide link to The Community Projects Section of eSpectra to locate digitization projects, some of which involve historical photograph collections.

National Grid for Learning (U.K.)
http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/
An enormous gateway to educational and learning resources, including cultural institutions such as museums, archives, and libraries, the NGL brings the wealth of Internet/Web resources to U.K. teachers and students, as well as to the rest of the world. Use the "What are you looking for?" link to locate "Reference material" and cultural institutions.

National Library of Canada, Inventory of Canadian Digital Initiatives
http://www.nlcbnc.ca/initiatives/erella.htm
This site "provides descriptions of Canadian information resources created for the Web, including general digital collections, resources centered around a particular theme, and reference sources and databases." The largest category for Type of Material is Images (photographs, maps), with 130 records.

24HourMuseum: The National Virtual Museum (U.K.)
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
This gateway site offers the ability to search for museums and galleries containing photograph collections. Select the Advanced Search option, then Photography as the Collection Type. Because photography collections may also be categorized by subject matter and since you can only search one Collection Type at a time, a basic keyword search for "photography" yields more results than an advanced search limited to that collection type.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO Archives Portal
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_archives/pages/index.shtml
Look in the Primary Sources Online and Preservation and Conservation links for digitization projects involving historical photographs.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO Libraries Portal
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_bib/
Look in the Preservation and Access Initiatives link for digital library projects.

University of Arizona Library, Clearinghouse of Image Databases and the IMAGELIB listserv archives
http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/image_projects.html
Created in July 1994 by Stuart Glogoff at the University of Arizona, this site serves as a clearinghouse "targeted at professionals working with imaging technology, librarians, archivists, metadata specialists, database administrators and others who are planning or developing databases containing digital objects." The database is organized by institution name and by media type (e.g., photographs) and can be searched through a WAIS index.

University of Chicago at Illinois and Association of Research Libraries, ARL Digital Initiatives Database
http://www.arl.org/did/index.html
Search or browse by digitization project or institution. The Browse by Project option retrieves 427 records, displayed 25 records at a time. The database search form provides a thesaurus for locating specific vocabulary within the "Project Objective, Description or Keyword" field that pertains to the digitization of photographic collections.
 

The Public Galleries
As with the search tools list, this list is not exhaustive and only serves to highlight selected online collections of historical photographs at the national level in North America and elsewhere in the world. Many worthy institutions had to be excluded from this list. The main consideration was how significant a representation of the historical photograph collection is available to the Web visitor. Except as noted in the site descriptions, the arbitrary, minimum number of digitized photographs for inclusion in this list is 1,000. As an example of how skewed this survey is, the British Columbia Archives [http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca] describes more than 110,000 photographs and artwork in its database, with more than 65,000 of those descriptions linked to digitized photos. That number is only 10,000 images shy of the total number available through Images Canada.

Canada

Images Canada
http://www.imagescanada.ca
This gateway site is very much like PictureAustralia. Both consist entirely of historic photograph and graphic arts collections at several public institutions. Over 75,000 online images can be simultaneously searched through simple keyword searches or by combining up to three different search fields, including creator, format, and date. The site includes photo essays by historians on a variety of topics, along with activity ideas for educators and several pre-set searches called Trails. One of the most important and largest contributing partners to Images Canada is the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta (50,000 online images).

McCord Museum, Notman Photographic Archives
http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/
Based in Montreal, the firm of William Notman and Sons was the first Canadian photographic business to achieve international recognition in the 19th century. The McCord Museum at McGill University acquired the company's entire negative collection. To search the Notman Photographic Archives, whose work spans Canada, select the Search > Notman Photographic Archives link. Nearly 24,000 images are available for online viewing, including photographs acquired by the archives and not part of Notman's own output. Watermarked images can be downloaded in the JPEG format.

National Archives of Canada
http://www.archives.ca
Use the ArchiviaNet: On-Line Research Tool to "Research by Type of Document" (e.g., Photographs). The photographs database contains nearly 400,000 descriptions of photographs, historic and current, and provides access to some 3,800 online images. The basic search is by keyword, the detailed search includes additional fields based on an internal database; no option exists to limit searches by format, date, or photographer. The National Archives of Canada also has a number of permanent, virtual exhibits that feature modern and historic photographs and their creators.

Natural Resources Canada, Earth Sciences Information Centre, Photo Gallery
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/ess/esic/galleries_e.html#Photo
The ESIC holds over a half-million photo negatives generated by the Geological Survey of Canada. An ongoing digitization program is placing selected images on the Web for public access. You can browse through thematic pages or search a few different ways. Watermarked images download in the JPEG format.

Portrait Gallery of Canada
http://www.portraits.gc.ca/
Operated by the National Archives of Canada, this institution was established in January 2001 and is comparable to its counterparts in the U.K. and the U.S.. According to its Web site, "A Virtual Portrait Gallery ... will give access to the extensive historical holdings of art, photography, multimedia, and archival records which the Gallery draws upon from the National Archives of Canada, as well as other portrait galleries and networks of cultural institutions in Canada and around the world." Having only appointed an interim director in July 2001, the online gallery is not yet a reality, and the physical facility will not open until 2004 at the earliest.
 

United States

American Strategy
http://www.americanstrategy.org
American Strategy is an attempt to tie together the vast numbers of digitized collections held by federal institutions into three grand themes which best express the American vision: Foundations of Democracy, From Sea to Shining Sea, and Innovation and Invention. The project is managed jointly by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Washington, DC), the American Association of Museums (Washington, DC) and the Getty Information Institute (Los Angeles, CA). Because the Search Engine link connects to an inactive server at the Getty Information Institute, the site is navigable only through the thematic pages or the site map page. The PictureAustralia gateway site acknowledges this initiative as a source of inspiration.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Online Catalog
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html
Digitized collections of photographs can be simultaneously or individually searched. Summaries of each collection are available. Several of these collections do not form part of the American Memory site. Some images will not display outside the Library of Congress Internet domain. Some collections, such as the Look Magazine database, contain only bibliographic records.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Image Exchange (NIX)
http://nix.nasa.gov/
Browse or search several NASA databases for online images or digitized photographs which document the human and robotic exploration of outer space, as well as aeronautical experiments preceding space flight. According to the FAQ, "Currently, NIX searches databases of over 450,000 NASA images and links to an additional 2,641,326 NASA images that reside on the Web (accessible via the ADDITIONAL NASA IMAGERY link on the home page)." Many, if not all the images, are downloadable.

National Archives and Records Administration (U.S.)
http://www.nara.gov
Use the Research Room link to get to the NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL) database. A convenient Digital Copies Search link in NAIL allows you to limit your search to online photographs. Including "Aerial Photographs" and "Photographs and Graphic Materials" with no additional search limitations, a search for all units of NARA returned nearly 58,000 online photographs. Images can be downloaded as GIF files. NARA also has a virtual Exhibit Hall which includes some exhibits such as "Picturing the Century and Panoramic Photographs" that highlight its holdings of historical photographs.

National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division, Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)
http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/
This site provides access to "nearly 60,000 images in the prints and photograph collection [of the division]. The collection includes portraits, pictures of institutions, caricatures, genre scenes, and graphic art in a variety of media, illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine." Images are searched by keyword or browsed by five different database fields. The watermarked images are downloadable.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Photo Library
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/
Over 20,000 online images (photographs and artwork) can be browsed by subject matter or searched. The collections include photographs taken by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the oldest science agency in the U.S., as it surveyed the land and oceans bordering the U.S. High-resolution JPEG images are downloadable.

New York Public Library, Digital Library Collection
http://digital.nypl.org/
Most of its image collections have New York City as their subject matter. Some collections use a different format than American Memory at the Library of Congress. Images accessed here are downloadable. A forthcoming collection, Visual Treasures, is slated for completion in 2004. According to the project's summary, Visual Treasures "will create a publicly accessible, Web-based and fully searchable image catalog documenting cultural and social history in images...."

Smithsonian Institution, The National Portrait Gallery
http://www.npg.si.edu/index.htm
Use the Classification Type of Photograph to locate bibliographic records (no online images) of thousands of portraits of individuals from around the world preserved by this branch museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Online exhibitions include themes illustrated with historical photographs or centered around individual photographers. The National Museum of American Art, also operated by the Smithsonian, can be simultaneously searched with the National Portrait Gallery via the Smithsonian's Online Photo Collections site [http://photo2.si.edu/].

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archives
http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/
These photographs, gathered from institutions and individuals around the world, document anti-Jewish activities, principally in Europe during the Hitler years (1930s-1945). You can only search by keyword, though the Search the Collections page states, "This system allows the user to search the catalogs by entering a keyword, personal name, Library of Congress Subject Heading, or geographic place name." The bibliographic record contains hyperlinks to subject matter, so a successful search can help retrieve related photographs. A hyperlink appears at the bottom of each record to "Show me more photographs like this one." Images download in the JPEG format.

University of California at Berkeley, California Heritage Collection
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/
Search or browse through more than 30,000 images, including photographs depicting Californian and Western North American history and culture (includes digitized images from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America) from the university's Bancroft Library collections. This site is part of the California Digital Library's Online Archive of California [http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu/oac/]. High-resolution and mid-resolution images download in JPEG format.

University of California at Riverside, California Museum of Photography
http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/
Not unlike the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, the CMP documents the history of photography from a California and Western U.S. perspective. Featured here are online photographs by Ansel Adams, special presentations from the Keystone-Mast Collection of stereograph (three-dimensional) photographs, and virtual exhibits on topics such as women photographers and hand-colored photographs of 19th century Japan. Illustrated databases to parts of the huge camera collection are also available.

University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Department of Photography & Film
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/photography/index.html
A special Web page, The World's First Photograph [http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/photography/wfp/wfpmain.html], describes the history of and illustrates the oldest surviving photograph taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in France in 1826 using his own process. The center also hosts a permanent virtual exhibit, "Reflections in A Looking Glass: A Lewis Carroll Centenary Exhibition" [http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/carroll/lc1.html]. The entire photography collection database can be searched or browsed in various ways, including collections with digital images. Images are downloadable.
 

The Private Galleries
Here we list a few of the most prominent, internationally renowned photographic archives operated as commercial ventures or by private organizations and individuals, including academic faculty. Some of these sites allow users to download photographs. This section also includes descriptions of some Web sites focused on the history of photography and its practitioners, though we only include a small number of photo-journalism image databases, e.g. Associated Press, Hulton/Archive, and TimePix.

AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archives
http://ap.accuweather.com/
Home to the image archives of the Associated Press, this user-pay database operated by AccuWeather, Inc. targets the U.S. educational and library communities. No free searching is available, but potential customers can register for a 2-week free trial. A Macromedia Flash tutorial provides a peek into the wealth of photographs selected from an archives dating back to the 1840s, including other media (AP news stories, illustrations from 1999 forward, and audio files back to the 1920s).

American Museum of Photography
http://www.photographymuseum.com/
The personal project of William B. Becker, this museum exists only on the Internet. The museum existed in a previous form beginning in 1996 as "Photography's Beginnings: A Visual History." Rotating exhibits are based on Becker's own collection of 5,000 images supplemented by digitized photographs from other institutions. The Research Center includes links to other photographic history Web sites.

Hulton/Archive Picture Collection
http://www.hultongetty.com
Part of the vast Getty Images empire and linked to GettyOne.com, this site deserves special mention because 230,000 online images from the 40-million-strong photo collection are searchable or browsable upon free registration. The Hulton/Archive collection was established when Getty Images merged the Hulton Getty operation in London, England, with Archive Photos in New York City. Watermarked images can be freely downloaded as JPEG files.

International Museum of Photography and Film, George Eastman House, Photography Collections Online
http://www.geh.org/
George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, resided in Rochester, New York. His home includes this museum and archives with an extraordinary array of digitized photographs, from a collection sampler (1839 to the present) to photo albums, stereo views, and collections of images by the medium's most important practitioners. All images are available as downloadable JPEG files for private study. Because of its focus on photography, its international scope, and its public nature, though a private organization, this site can be considered the most important Web resource for online historical photographs.

J. Paul Getty Museum (The Getty)
http://www.getty.edu
To view a large assortment of online examples of various photographic technologies preserved by the museum, select the Collections link, then Photographs under Collection Types. There are more than 100 digitized daguerreotypes and nearly 600 photographic prints in various formats. To locate information about the Getty's holdings of a particular photographer, select the Artists link within the Collections page. Digital images download in the JPEG format. The Getty Research Library also maintains a large database of records, the Photo Study Collection Database, which describes photographs depicting works of art and architecture. Some of these photographs are available in digital form [see http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/psc/].

National Stereoscopic Association
http://www.stereoview.org/
Select the Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library link, then the Photographers and Subjects (3-D Images and Information) link to view sample digitized stereographs from some of the most celebrated historical stereo photographers, organized by photographer name and subject matter. Images download as JPEG files.

TimePix
http://www.thepicturecollection.com
Register for free and access a large portfolio of online images from the Time-Life magazine and the Mansell collections. Simple keyword searches or extensive advanced search options are available, including by Time-Life publication or specific photographers. The online help system was inactive and the total number of online images unrevealed when we searched. A search for the term "world," however, returned 14, 976 images. Perhaps the most famous photographer affiliated with this collection is Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971). Watermarked images in the JPEG format can be downloaded. A related Web site is Time Life Photo Sight [http://www.pathfinder.com/photo/index.html] which includes photo essays and selections of historic photographs by 20th century photographers who worked for Time or Life magazines.

Women Artists of the American West: Past & Present
http://www.sla.purdue.edu/waaw/default.html
Developed by Susan Ressler, Purdue University, and Jerrold Maddox, Penn State University, this Web site is an Internet course and a Web resource that includes contributions made by women photographers. While not image-rich, the site contains much valuable historic data, especially in Peter E. Palmquist's "Women in Photography Archive" section.
 

International Public and Private Galleries

Alinari Picture Imaging Photo Gallery
http://www.alinari.com
Founded in 1852 in Florence, Italy, Fratelli Alinari is the oldest firm in continuous existence connected with photography. The company claims to have over 3.5 million images available. There are two sites, one commercial (100,000 images) and one for students and educators (50,000 images); both require subscriptions. The company also offers hand-printed photographs from its collection of glass-plate negatives.

Art Museum Image Consortium
http://www.amico.org
AMICO is an international cooperative venture to support the educational and research use of art and photographic collections from the collections of its members. The AMICO Library Thumbnail Catalog is available for public searching by keyword or advanced search options, which include creator or object type (e.g., Photographs). Over 25,000 online photographs are documented in the catalog. Two photographic museums, the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, have portions of their holdings represented in the AMICO Library. Membership entitles one to view and download for educational use images up to 1024 x 768 pixels.

Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (Germany)
http://www.fotomr.uni-marburg.de/
http://www.bildindex.de
This site features over 2 million digitized photographs and artwork, along with corresponding descriptions. The site interface is in German. Select the Gäste (Guest) link in the center frame or the Bildindex (Picture Index) link in the content frame to access the Bildarchiv zur Kunst und Architektur in Deutschland (Picture Archive on Art and Architecture in Germany). Searches are by keyword or drill-down lists accessible through four topic categories (Orte [Places, 1.4 million images], Künstler [Artists, 220,000 images], Dargestellte Themen [Topics, 220,000 images], and Ansichten Porträts [Portraits, 220,000 images]). The Themen category is organized according to the ICONCLASS system [http://www.iconclass.nl].

Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France), Gallica
http://gallica.bnf.fr/
Comparable to the Library of Congress' American Memory site, Gallica has concentrated on digitizing historic publications about France. Many of these works, which include early technical manuals on photographic processes, are illustrated with photographs or other types of imagery. Among the online exhibits at Gallica (select the Dossiers link), the Voyages en France features 6,000 images (art, maps, and photographs). Through the Recherche link, keyword and other kinds of searches are available.

Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, Hill and Adamson Collection
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/
David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson were two of the most important practitioners in the mid-1840s of the calotype photographic process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot is considered a co-inventor of photography along with its French inventor L.J.M. Daguerre. This site is an online, illustrated catalog with thumbnail images to the entire collection. Full-size images can only be accessed within the university's network. The site includes background information by photohistorian Dr. Larry J. Schaaf. A related site operated by the university, which Dr. Schaaf is directing, is The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot Project [http://www.foxtalbot.arts.gla.ac.uk]. The Talbot Project site includes links to other Web sites devoted to the early history of photography.

HeritageImage Partnership (U.K.)
http://www.heritage-images.com
Similar to the ImagesCanada and PictureAustralia gateways, this private/public sector collaboration features images, including historical photographs, from institutions such as the British Library, the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, the Royal Photographic Society, the National Motor Museum, and the Museum of London. Images can be searched or browsed a variety of ways, including by photographic terminology. Subject headings assigned to each image description are hyperlinked. The mid-size watermarked images download in the JPEG format.

Nagasaki University Library (Japan), Japanese Old Photographs in Bakumatsu-Meiji Period
http://oldphoto.lb.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/unive/
A public site intended to highlight photographs taken in Japan between 1860-1899 or from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji era. Many of the photographs are hand-colored. The English search interface includes a clickable map along with suggested English keywords. The photographs can also be searched by shelf location. According to the About page, "As of the end of March 1999, items in the collection numbered 5,414, making it one of the largest collections in Japan." The images download as JPEG files.

National Library of Australia, PictureAustralia
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/
Gateway site to online image collections in Australia. The Advanced Search feature includes an option to search by format (e.g., "stereo" with Truncate selected produces 313 stereograph images). A series of thematic "Trails" allows one to browse the collections. A hyperlink to the image provider's site allows a user to locate offline image collections and order copies.

National Library of New Zealand, Alexander Turnbull Library, Timeframes
http://timeframes1.natlib.govt.nz/
Search or browse over 20,000 online images (photographs, artwork, and other media, including print) and accompanying bibliographic records pertaining to New Zealand, the South Pacific basin, and the British colonial settlers' roots. Browsing uses a controlled subject vocabulary. The Advanced Search option includes the ability to limit a search to the Photographic Archive. Images download in the JPEG format or, upon registering, can be ordered online.

National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television (U.K.)
http://www.nmpft.org.uk/insight/home.asp
This museum is the British equivalent of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Unlike the former's Web site, however, large numbers of photographs are not available online. The site does feature virtual exhibits on the history of photography in the U.K. and elsewhere. Many downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDFs are available on the history of photography, film, and television. Digitized photographs at the NMPF&T can be searched via the HeritageImage Partnership site.

National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)
http://www.npg.org.uk/
According to information accompanying each bibliographic record, "The online database contains information on approximately 34,000 works, 11,500 of which are illustrated; the National Portrait Gallery's collection includes over 1,000,000 works." The Advanced Search option offers the ability to limit the search by "Medium type" (e.g., Photograph). A search retrieved 1,062 digitized photographic portraits, including photographs of pioneer photographers such as David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.

Research Libraries Group, Inc., RLG Cultural Materials
http://culturalmaterials.rlg.org/
Full access is available only by annual subscription, but you can arrange free trial access. Some of the collections appear to be already available at their host institutions at no cost. For example, in the "Tour" section of how one might use RLG Cultural Materials, you would learn that a color image of Jorrocks, a famous racehorse, was contributed by the National Library of Australia. This same image, however, is available at no charge through PictureAustralia (though the quality is not great). The digital collections listed in RLG Cultural Materials include ones consisting entirely of historical photographs.

Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network (SCRAN)
http://www.scran.ac.uk/homepage/
Gateway and customizable portal service to Scottish heritage and cultural resources that features over 1 million text and multimedia (images, videos, audio) database records. Public access is limited to thumbnail images, while full access to larger-size images requires an annual subscription. The site can be searched or browsed and includes virtual exhibitions. A search using the keyword "photograph" returned nearly 50,000 images.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO Photobank
http://upo.unesco.org/photobank.asp
Extending back to 1957 or 9 years after UNESCO's founding in 1946, the database contains over 10,000 digitized photographs and slides relating to its activities. UNESCO also maintains databases for video (Videobank) and artwork (Artbank). Images download in the JPEG format.

Victoria & Albert Museum (U.K.)
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
Although only 152 digitized photographs are available, these are among the most important representations of photographic art and technology from the earliest years of photography. All images download as JPEG files.

Visual Arts Data Service (U.K.)
http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/
Part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), VADS is based at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College. Online visual resources accessible through the Search Collections link are intended for the use of higher-education institutions in the U.K. Some, if not all the historical photograph images (over 1,000), download in the JPEG format. One of the more interesting products accessible through VADS is a self-contained, downloadable computer tutorial (5.77MB) by Professor Douglas Tallack, Nottingham University, on the documentary photography of Jacob Riis (1849-1914) in New York City. In order to complete the set-up program, users must request the e-mail transmission of a serial number from VADS.
 

Conclusion
Historical photographs are easily found using the image-search features of the major search engines. For the greatest success in finding such photographs, use the name of a photographer or a keyword, preferably an uncommon one associated with the photograph, such as a place name, a personal name, or an event. You may need to try your search as both an exact phrase and in different Boolean combinations. If you are searching for photographs of a specific place, try locating an archive or other institution in that locale likely to preserve such images. If unsuccessful, expand your search outwards to the regional and national levels. The history and evolution of photography as a technology and medium of communication and art form are best represented in archives, museums and hobbyist organizations devoted to photography. If you are uncertain about the legality of using a historical photograph in digital or print form, always ask, but, as Tomaiuolo pointed out, never assume that the person claiming copyright actually is the copyright owner. Historical photographs of a certain age are in the public domain and do not require anyone's permission to use for any purpose. However, you should assume a historical photography may be protected by copyright, since the responsibility for such use always rests with you.