photo by Matthew McDermott of the New York Post
Library staff and customers alike often need images to use in their work. When images are utilized to promote a web site, event, or business, it's important to insure that the owner of the original material has given permission to use it. Fastidious laws that protect the use of images may seem tiresome, but protecting the rights of creators and their creations for the most part encourages new ideas, fair trade, and sharing.
There are three main types of images that are available online: public domain images, right protected images, and royalty free images. Public domain images are free, and right protected images are purchased for a certain length of time. iStockPhoto and Fotolia are sites where you may purchase royalty-free images. Royalty free means that once you "buy" the image, it may be used indefinately and without limit.
There's a press release on the Fotolia site which states that "sales of $1 images continued to generate six-figure incomes for the world’s top photographers in 2009". That's incredible! (And it's caused me to consider sharing my images with the world.)
10 places to find free images online has more information and links to many online image banks. For example, bigphoto.com is a royalty free photo bank which offers free downloads of all pictures. To credit the photographer, the user is asked simply to provide a link back to the website. bigphoto.com is where you can find "pictures from around the world", but frankly I found the site disappointing. They had pictures from only 5 of Africa's 53 countries. 51 pictures are available for "Egypt", which seems like really slim pickings. I proceeded to look for pictures under the heading "America". Did they have a picture of Slim Pickens? Nope. In my opinion, this site was not the bomb.
(If I credit wikipedia for this picture, have I followed the rules?)
On the other hand, MorgueFile.com has an absolutely incredible collection of images. The images are free, but cannot be published "on a standalone basis". I'm not sure what that means. I don't even have to post an attribution, but I linked back to the site anyway, just because I want to acknowledge the person who is allowing me to add this butterfly to my blog. Beautiful!
I used AllFreeClipArt and found a picture of a Santa Mouse in 4 clicks. With 7 clicks I found a Santa that looked like he hadn't slept in a week. I suppose it has it's uses, but after seeing what's available on morguefile.com, the clip art wasn't very exciting.
HCPL subscribes to Schools.clipart. Staff may use this resource to create posters, flyers, bulletin boards, and other materials suitable for an educational environment. The site doesn't just contain line drawings and cartoonish pictures; it offers illustrations, photos, 3d clip art, and signart. If I was making a children's display for Chinese New Year, I might use this image of a cat.
Image courtesy of JupiterImages
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