Frequently Asked Questions

NYPL Digital Gallery <http://digitalgallery.nypl.org> is a free service from The New York Public Library offering hundreds of thousands of digital images of historical materials from The Library's original, rare and specialized holdings. Images are primarily from the Research Libraries, and 30,000 images from the Branch Libraries' Mid-Manhattan Library Picture Collection are also searchable via NYPL Digital Gallery. NYPL provides free and open access to its Digital Gallery and images may be freely downloaded for personal, research and study purposes only.

However, as the physical rights holder of this material most of which is in the public domain for copyright purposes, the Library charges a usage fee if images are to be used in any nonprofit or commercial publication, broadcast, web site, exhibition, promotional material, etc. The usage fee is not a copyright fee. You are free to obtain a copy of these images from a source other than NYPL. Usage fees help ensure that the Library is able to continue to acquire, preserve and provide access to the accumulated knowledge of the world.

For information on ordering images and permissions, including but not limited to any type of publication or commercial use, contact The Library's Photographic Services & Permissions office.

Media: Artworks; fine prints; manuscript illuminations; maps; photographs; printed ephemera such as menus, post cards, posters, and trade cards; rare illustrated books; and other pictorial formats

Time periods: Middle ages to early- and mid-twentieth century predominate, although historical images of earlier eras may be found, as well as some post-1950 holdings

Subjects: The applied sciences, book arts, fine and decorative arts, history, performing arts, and social sciences; in other words, the established subject strengths of the vast collections of the Research Libraries

Geographical range: International with strong representation of New York, the United States, Europe, and the Far East

Organization: In most cases, this website presents holdings in their entirety; for example, when a group of materials is digitized, it means every print in a series, photograph in a folder, plate in a classic illustrated zoology, or trade card in a numbered run is represented by a digital image if it is owned by NYPL. Some holdings are presented as they are organized and kept by library divisions and curatorial departments, and as they might be accessed in the Research Libraries' study rooms. Other materials, primarily books and portfolios, are presented in groupings by artist or topical theme in order to bring together works that relate to a common creator or subjects, but were acquired from various sources or are held in different physical locations.

There are over 600,000 images now and growing, for many collections are still in production and/or development. These digitized items represent but a fraction of the New York Public Library's overall visual holdings.

While you are not required to log on or provide any personal information to download images for personal, research or study purposes, this site uses cookies (small text files stored on your computer) for certain personalized features, like retrieving your image selections for future viewing. This information allows you to view your Selections when returning to this site later. No personal information is gathered by The New York Public Library, and you may clear images from your Selections or your Search History at any time.

Cookies allow us to provide certain personalized features like your Selections and Search History, but they are not required to search or access images on the rest of this site.

Searching:
Enter one or more words or phrases in the search box. Use Advanced Searching for more options.

Browsing:
There are several ways to browse: Exploring Collection Guides leads to topical collections; the indexes for Names, Subjects, and Libraries lead to specific titles and images. In addition, most individual images connect to more images from the same source via links provided on the image detail pages. These detail pages also provide links to other images via linked subjects and names. Further bibliographic information is available through links to the Research Libraries' online catalog, CatNYP.

The low-resolution images available on the website are suitable for immediate printing or downloading to provide good-quality reference copies for a wide range of educational, creative, and research purposes. High-resolution images are available for licensing for personal use and for professional reproduction through Photographic Services & Permissions.

Library staff have digitally captured and processed primarily materials too valuable, vulnerable, or irregular to be managed in a production environment. Two imaging contractors, both on-site and in facilities off-site, digitized the balance, comprised mainly of large collections of very similar materials.

Whenever possible, existing data has been leveraged to help create descriptive records (metadata); in addition, cataloging specialists have added specific subject terms, names and physical descriptions from established authority vocabularies.

A wide range of information technology staff has developed the systems to electronically store, retrieve and deliver this content to you.