
For images that now live in the public domain, there are more and more digital repositories where you can find amazing – let me say this again amazing illustrations and more to help inspire your creative side and or support your research in a visual way. Some of the items out there aren’t in the public domain yet, but you may be doing research say about Punk in Washington, DC in the 1980s, is there an online archive for that? Why yes there is!
I’ve been working within or at least inside of libraries for the last six years and I wanted to note that these visualizations have come in handy when developing creative projects or developing your research plans. I wanted to list a solid list of unique repositories and collections where you, yes you can find awesome freely available historic items. Look to universities and public libraries throughout the country to find location-specific digital archives – there are so many out there.
Here at Plymouth State University, we have
Digital Collections
https://library.plymouth.edu/digitalcollections
and now for my list –
UNH Digital Collections
https://www.library.unh.edu/find/digital
Library of Congress – Free to Use and Reuse
https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/?loclr=twloc
Digital Commonwealth – Massachusetts Repository
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/
New York Public Library Digital Collections
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
Smithsonian Digital Collections
https://library.si.edu/collections
The Met Digital Collections
https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/
New York Historical Society
http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/?_ga=2.67718865.1147469213.1549912773-1353179924.1549912773
U.S. National Library of Medicine
https://collections2.nlm.nih.gov/
San Francisco Historical Photographs
North Carolina Digital Collections
Margaret Herrick Library (Oscars and Film)
http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/
Washington, DC Digital Collections – DIG DC
Check out the Punk Archive while you’re on DIG DC