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Library Home Page Homage to the Letterform
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Find Images, Graphics, or Sound

Having difficulty finding images, graphics, or sound for a project or assignment?

  • First, determine the kind of image you need:
    A photograph? A scientific drawing? An advertisement? An artistic representation? A design? An icon or logo? What is the concept the image will illustrate?
    Answers to these questions may determine where you search.
    You may already have an image in mind to illustrate an abstract concept (for example, you may want an image of a pair of scissors to illustrate the concept of cutting or editing). You may not have a particular image in mind and may just want to see what images you can retrieve when you enter your keywords (for instance, the word "honesty" may retrieve an image of the Greek statesman Aristides, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, a drawing of Pinocchio, or a photo of the "honesty plant"). You may need to perform several searches before finding the image you want to use.
  • Search periodical article indexes and online reference sources.
    Find articles that are illustrated or use the “image search” that is available on several of the databases to retrieve photographs, maps and flags.
  • Books, and especially reference books such as encyclopedias, are a great source of images, as many are illustrated. Use the library catalog to find books on your topic, then look at the book's record to see if it is illustrated.

  • The Web is one of the best sources for images, and the only source for sound files.
    • Google (http://image.google.com/) and Altavista (http://www.altavista.com/) are good Web search engines for these. Both allow limiting search results to image type, or to color or black & white. Google also allows limiting by image size and to .gif, .jpeg, or .png image file formats. You can find links to specialized search engines on the Visual Communication research shortcuts.
  • Images and sounds are usually protected by copyright. You must cite your source as with other information. Please consult a reference librarian if you have any questions

author: T.Ashley -- last revision: 8/22/09