This page lists web sites and other resources for finding historical and current images in science, technology, and medicine. Most of the links go directly to the part of the site that contains the portraits or images, and not to the main page.

For many more sources of information in these areas, please also consult the History of STM "web sites" page. 

This is only a sampling of image sites. Please tell your librarian if you know of others that should be added!

Search Engines and Finding Aids

Finding Images on the Web: Image Search Engines -- A list of web sites and search engines to use for finding images, collected by a librarian at Boston University.

Pagebull -- This is a new search engine that shows pictures of the web sites pulled up by your search, instead of words. Very helpful.

Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) -- This is a great guide for finding images on the web, whether sci/tech, historical, maps, or other kinds. It includes web sites to image collections and step-by-step tips for finding what you need. (TASI is part of the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee [JISC].)

General Collections

British Museum Images -- Images depicting world culture and history including ceramics, sculpture, prints, drawings, and paintings. Can be printed for free. There is a fee for usage other than individual.

Caltech Institute Archives -- "This archive holds documents, artifacts, and pictorial materials about Caltech's history from 1891+, but also includes many historical sources in science and technology worldwide, from the time of Copernicus to today."

Image Collections -- This site from the Centre for Digital Library Research at Strathclyde University in Glasgow

Images of History on the Web -- This article by David Mattison of the British Columbia Archives gives an annotated list of good sites to find historical images, including search tools, public and private galleries from Canada and the United States, archives, and more.  

JHU Digital Image Database (DID@JHU) -- This is a collection of high-quality digital images collected specifically for courses taught at Johns Hopkins. The collection now numbers over 35,000 images, including important materials from NASA and the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine, although the subjects cover everything imaginable. 

Museum of the History of Science (University of Oxford) -- Available resources include online exhibits, an image library, and museum newsletters. 

Royal Society of Chemistry's timeline -- This is not only chemistry, but "a visual exploration of key events in the history of science with particular emphasis on chemistry. 
     Timeline dates can be accessed through Flash-based interface or html. Individual items are illustrated and linked to further information on each subject. ... (Please note that as the main html timeline window contains links to all dates it may take one or two minutes to load depending on connection speed. However, once loaded it can be bookmarked for future reference.)"

Smithsonian Images -- About 2,000 photographs from the Smithsonian's 18 museums, research sites, and the National Zoo are now online. You can even build your own scrapbook of images. Begin by clicking HELP so that you can see how the site works.

Advertising   

Ad*Access - About 7,000 advertisements, mainly from U.S. publications, dating between 1911 and 1955. This site focuses on ads that relate to one of five main categories: Beauty and Hygiene, Transportation, Radio, Television, and World War II.

Emergency of Advertising in America, 1850-1920 -- This collection, part of Library of Congress's American Memory Collection, contains more than 9,000 images.

Architecture

Boston and Its Neighborhoods -- Collections of historic photographs, prints, paintings, and more of Boston and related images. 

Great Buildings Collection -- This site has images of "more than 1000 great buildings from around the world and across history."

Maryland Historical Society -- In addition to its 80,000+ photographs, the MDHS has online exhibitions.

Chemistry

Royal Society of Chemistry image collection -- This page describes the collection: it has about 8,000 images, about 2,000 of which have been digitized. To see them, you must use their library catalogue. (For example, in the search box I entered mendeleev image, and did get a description of a picture plus the picture itself. Note: the picture had "Royal Society of Chemistry copyright" printed all the way across it!)

Genetics

Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement -- Mostly materials from “the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, which was the center of American eugenics research from 1910-1940. In the Archive you will see numerous reports, articles, charts, and pedigrees that were considered scientific "facts" in their day.”

Maps

Historic Map Collections of the Sheridan Libraries --  This site finally lists all the maps held at JHU's Eisenhower, Peabody, and Garrett libraries, with some maps online. Our holdings include maps of "Baltimore City and Maryland from the mid-nineteenth through the twentieth century, including road maps, souvenir and tourist maps, and topographical maps." In addition, we also have maps of early nineteenth-century Baltimore, including a complete set of city directory maps, charts of the Chesapeake Bay from the late nineteenth through early twentieth century, maps related to military campaigns, and more. 

National Geographic -- There are printer-friendly maps that you can print for free. There is also a new (March 2007) collection of maps that can be viewed and whose magnifications can be changed. The small search box doesn't allow very detailed searching, but this site is definitely worth a look.

Medicine

National Library of Medicine, Online Exhibitions and Digital Projects -- A variety of exhibitions that include images as well as written material. One of the exhibitions is Dream Anatomy, which shows "the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present."

People

Center for History of Physics -- The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has a wonderful site which includes a visual archive. This archive has more than 25,000 historical photographs, slides, lithographs, engravings, and other materials. The focus is on American physicists and astronomers of the 20th century, but also includes many scientists in Europe and elsewhere, in fields related to physics, and in earlier times.

Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics -- This site includes an annotated portrait gallery of some of the 83 women on the site.

The Galileo Project -- This project, all about Galileo, includes portraits of Galileo and other scientists.

United States Historical Images

American Memory Project, Library of Congress -- Library of Congress images and collections are vast and generally don't get picked up by search engines. Here is the complete list of collections in the American Memory Project.
     Many American Memory collections contain sound recordings, video, high-resolution images, and enhanced text that require special viewers. Most viewers can be downloaded free from vendor sites; here is a chart of formats and players, if needed. 

"Finding United States Historical Images in Print and Online" -- This article appeared in the journal Reference & User Services Quarterly, volume 45(1), Fall 2005. It describes many excellent sources for images about the U.S., including National Archives, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, web exhibits, directories, and more. 

Weather, Ships, Marine Life, and More

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Photo Library -- This collection of photographs includes thousands of weather and space images, hundreds of images of U.S. shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine species images ranging from whales to plankton.

History of Science librarian:  Sue Vazakas, svazakas@jhu.edu, 410-516-4153
Last revised:  March 27, 2008