Welcome to another Sourcing Series segment presented by the Data Literacy Program (DLP) of the Alexandria Archive Institute. In this how-to article, we discuss how we’ve used the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections as a source for images to add to our Digital Data Stories and other materials. This is another follow-up article to our introduction to online sources of reusable images.
With over 1 million digitized images, the New York Public Library Digital Collections are one of our favorite places to find materials. Many of the visuals in their collection come from published books or previously printed materials that are part of their archival collection. These include postcards and other pieces of art. The cool thing about these materials’ association with the library is that they’ve got a really good handle on when something enters the public domain because they’ve got publication dates as part of their records!
They’re also a great source to learn more about the use of published images because as a library, they are very familiar with issues around citation, attribution, and copyright. For example, book covers and the art within books are copyrighted pieces of artwork. That means when one is not using them explicitly for critique, research, or in other fair use contexts, it’s important to ensure that the copyright holders maintain their rights.
While folks can seek permission for them, that can be a time consuming process. However, as we touched on in our article on public domain, copyright expires after a certain number of years. So, as a library with a long history and consistency in record-keeping, the NYPL has a lot of books in their collection whose copyrights are no longer valid.
We got connected with the collections of the NYPL through Wikimedia Commons (which we also use as a great source for images). However, we started exploring the NYPL Digital Collections on their own site as we dug deeper into their attribution requirements. While we follow the Title-Author-Source-License attribution system recommended by Creative Commons, NYPL had some of their own requests that didn’t get copied over to the linked Wikimedia Commons pages.
Here’s an example of a public domain image courtesy of The New York Public Library. www.nypl.org. See the credits below for more information.
For example, while public domain images can be used without permission, the NYPL requests that you state the NYPL as the source or attribute them when you use the public domain images from their collections or other materials from their website. While you don’t have to for public domain images, this request is a great reminder that public domain materials, especially when digitized, require time, money, and the labor of someone to make them available and maintain their online presence. Linking back to a work’s online original source allows the digital version creator, or its host, to see how those materials are used and do things like request more funding to make even more things available.
The NYPL’s digital collections also makes it easy to search for and attribute their images. For example, once you’ve put in a keyword search you can filter the results to only search public domain images. This is an awesome feature of their collection and one available on other websites as well if you know where to look.
Once you get to a specific image, like the one we’ve included in this piece, that image’s page includes a permanent link alongside different download options. Such links allow for easy and direct connection between your use of the image and its original digital source. They even have other suggested information to include in your attribution, such as different citation styles, making the process really easy.
Now that you know a bit more about the collections at the New York Public Library (and you can learn even more about them here), take the chance to browse their site to see if there are some fun things you can include in your next project or presentation. And don’t forget your attribution information, linking back and acknowledging the NYPL. One way to do that is by using the TASL system, which you can read about here. To learn more about other places to find new images or learn more about attribution take a look at the other entries in our Sourcing Series. Happy searching!
Image Credits: The main header image is an adaptation of an Adobe Stock image that we use as a logo for the Data Literacy Program (DLP) with the added title for the series and the specific title related to this article. The image “Old Spanish Mission, New Smyrna, Fla.” by the Detroit Publishing Company from The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection of the New York Public Library and determined to be in the public domain.
Article Updates: On 24 July 2025, the author added links to other Sourcing Series pieces that discuss how we use images from Wikimedia Commons, introduce citation and attribution, and a Data Story Short about TASL attributions.
