45 minute lecture and interactive discussion on finding, evaluating, using, and citing images for historical research. Includes short discussions on copyright, fair use, Creative Commons licenses, and attribution. Presentation created for a first year information literacy college class.
Worth a Thousand Words: Finding, Evaluating, and Using Historical Images
1. WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS:
FINDING, EVALUATING, AND
USING HISTORICAL IMAGES
REBEKAH CUMMINGS, LEAP LIBRARIAN, MARRIOTT LIBRARY
SERVICE LEAP 1100
MARCH 8, 2017
2. WHY PICTURES?
“Migrant Mother” by Dorothea
Lange of Florence Owens in 1936.
Found at the Library of Congress
website. No known restrictions on
use.
Image Credit: Library of
Congress
3. Photo of 5 year old
Omran Daqneesh
distributed by the
Aleppo Media Center
in 2016. Video on
YouTube viewed 4.3
million times.
Image Credit: NPR
4. FINDING IMAGES
• Flickr Commons
• Wikimedia Commons
• Library of Congress Print and
Photograph Collection
• New York Public Library Digital
Collection
• Digital Public Library of America
• Research Databases
• ArtStor
• Mountain West Digital Library
• Vogue Archive
You will need to use this for your assignment!
7. USING IMAGES HELPFUL HINTS
• Do look outside of Google Images
• Do learn as much as you can about the images that you use
• Do assess the perspective of the photographer and/or publisher.
• Don’t violate copyright laws when using photos.
• Don’t always think of photos as an “objective” view
8. USING IMAGES - COPYRIGHT
• Federal law that gives authors of exclusive works the
exclusive right to reproduce, display, prepare
derivative works, and distribute copies of the work.
• Copyright lasts a really long time.
• People really do sue for copyright infringement. Image Credit:
Rebekah Cummings
9. FAIR USE
• A legal exception to the exclusive rights an owner
has for his or her copyrighted works
• Four factors
• Purpose (educational, commercial, etc.)
• Nature of the work (creative, factual)
• Amount or substantiality
• Effect on the market Image Credit:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2016/08/infring
ement-or-fair-use-knowing-the-difference.html
12. LET’S PRACTICE!
1. What image did you find?
2. Where did you find it?
3. Was it hard to find?
4. What is the copyright status of the image?
5. Can you tell us anything about the context, authorship,
or audience for the image?
6. How does the image support or relate to your topic?
13. REFERENCES
• Lange, D. (1936). Migrant Mother [Digital image]. Retrieved from
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html
• Gharib, M. (2016.). The Little Boy in Aleppo: Can One Photo End a War? NPR.org. Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/19/490679863/the-little-boy-in-aleppo-can-one-
photo-end-a-war
•
• Macabitas, Louise. (2011). Image of Officer John Pike pepper spraying UC Davis students. Retrieved
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uc_Davis_Pepper_Spray_Incident.jpg
•
• Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1892). Sioux boys 3 years after arrival at
Carlisle. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-1b91-a3d9-e040-
e00a18064a99
•
• Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1892). Sioux boys as they arrived at
Carlisle. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-1b90-a3d9-e040-
e00a18064a99
14. QUESTIONS?
• Contact one of your LEAP librarians at…
• REBEKAH.CUMMINGS@UTAH.EDU
• MARIE.PAIVA@UTAH.EDU
Photo Credit:
Marriott Library
Editor's Notes
There is something about pictures that connect us much more closely to events and people, and inform us in ways that are much more visceral than text. Actually I think good writing paints a picture in our heads in ways that bad writing just doesn’t, but nothing compares to an image to make something seem much more real.
32 year old mother of seven children in California during the Great Depression. Been living on frozen vegetables and birds that her children had killed.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b29516/#locshare/share
What this picture tells is the desperation of a woman trying to raise a family.
New York Public Library
DPLA- Indian boarding school
Library catalog
Research Databases –Mountain West Digital Library
One of many "before-and-after education" photographs produced in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century to document the change produced in Native American children and youth by enrollment in Indian boarding schools.
What do you notice about these photos? Clothing, hair, posture, Sitting in chairs as opposed to sitting near the ground, Legs crossed, background is different but that seems to be somewhat inconsequential.
These photos are not objective. The photographer didn’t just find them this way and snap a photo. What message is he trying to send.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/photos-before-and-after-carlisle/
What is copyright? From our constitution – balance between the rights of creators to profit from their works and the rights of people to information.
Who does it apply to?
How long does it last?