Navigating Your Rights & Responsibilities to Image Resources on the Open Web and in the Library

Authors

Nat Gustafson-Sundell, Minnesota State University, MankatoFollow

Document Type

Conference Presentation

Publication Date

6-2022

Abstract

Students and the public often need to use image resources for a variety of applications, but they may not have a strong understanding of their rights and responsibilities to online and print image resources, especially for creative and commercial purposes. They may also not realize that there are image resources other than, and often better than Google Images. My library cancelled an expensive image database about ten years ago. Afterward, I developed an image resources libguide and instruction session about image resources in consultation with several Art & Design faculty. The libguide presents a curated, free collection as a superior alternative to a paid collection. The content of the libguide and the session is applicable to many fields other than Art & Design.

While the instruction session is typically taught as an interactive workshop, I will present the content of the libguide and the session in a more traditional conference format, including both video and live Q&A. I will cover the four domains governing rights to use image resources, including Creative Commons licenses, the public domain, copyright, and commercial licenses. I will describe the limitations of Google Images. Finally, I will demonstrate a handful of fun and interesting alternative image resources as an invitation for participants to explore more on their own. I will not cover scholarly rights and responsibilities to image resources, because these tend to be well-covered elsewhere.

Participants should gain a better understanding of anyone’s rights and responsibilities when using image resources for creative and commercial purposes. Participants will also learn about some fun websites. Participants should feel empowered to use and teach image resources more confidently.

Department

Library Services

Recommended Citation

Gustafson-Sundell, N. (2022, June). Navigating your rights & responsibilities to image resources on the open web and in the library. Presented at the Lake Superior Libraries Symposium 2022, online.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.