ARTstor Image Database Expands
ARTstor, the digital image database that UCLA has subscribed to since 2005, is growing at a substantial rate. New collections continue to be added on a regular basis, and more than five hundred thousand images are now available.
Among noteworthy recent additions are Quick Time Virtual Reality panoramas of important architectural sites including early Christian and Byzantine monuments, medieval cathedrals, Renaissance and Baroque architectural monuments, and modern masterpieces such as Le Corbusier’s Church of Nôtre Dame du Haut and Rem Koolhaas’ Seattle Public Library. The three-dimensional panoramas allow the viewer to experience the feeling of being virtually inside the building, giving those studying these sites at a distance the ability to understand their spatial relationships.
Another new collection of note is the Image of the Black in Western Art, a collaboration between ARTstor and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Spanning some five thousand years and documenting nearly all artistic media, the research project and photo archive is an unprecedented research initiative devoted to the systematic investigation of how people of African descent have been perceived and represented in art in the western tradition from antiquity to the present.
These two new collections highlight how ARTstor is expanding; many other important collections have also been added recently, and ARTstor has plans to add approximately twenty-five more in the coming year. To join a subscription list to receive messages about new collections as they are added, send a blank email to ARTstor.
If you have questions about ARTstor or would like to arrange instruction for students about how to use this rich resource, contact Robert Gore, visual arts librarian, by phone at extension 65426 or by email.
