Value of ARTstor in the museum community

Museums derive value from ARTstor both by contributing their own content and also by utilizing its collections and tools for their own research, educational, and presentation needs.

Benefits of content contribution include:

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Voices: testimony from the museum community

Danial Elliot, Library Director, Philadelphia Museum of Art

"ARTstor enables the Philadelphia Museum of Art to share efficiently its best photography, including new original digital photography, and the most current knowledge about its collections to the world of art scholars. And the Museum's staff is grateful for access to the same quality images and data from its peer institutions. Access to the ARTstor also allows Visual Resources staff at the Museum to focus efforts on original and rare materials rather than on digitizing outdated surrogate materials from other sources.
The Personal Collections function allows curatorial staff to place images and data for upcoming exhibitions in a protected environment where all PMA staff members, including volunteer guides working from home, may review materials. As plans change and an exhibition is finalized, curators can keep that shared body of information current and all staff can use the same high quality images for study and the preparation of teaching tools. In the past, it took numerous slide sets, which were difficult to keep current and were discarded at the end of the exhibition, to share information.

The Museum's Education Department, in its distance education programs, utilizes the OIV software, along with high quality images, to show dramatic views of its own collections to students who are unable to visit the Museum in person. The Education Department is also beginning to offer consultation and support to K-12 teachers who can make use of ARTstor for their own teaching goals.
And we are looking forward to loading a hosted collection of materials that will include historic museum views, past installation photography, and object photography for use by Museum staff."

Leigh Gates, Visual Resources Librarian, Art Institute of Chicago

"The Art Institute of Chicago's participation in ARTstor serves a broad community of art lecturers, instructors, and students across the museum and art school spectrum. It has proven to be especially appreciated by the students of the School of the Art Institute who use its multi-disciplinary content for classroom presentations, and by adjunct faculty. The lecturers in our Museum Education Department are anticipating making full use of ARTstor's Museum Educators License, which will allow local teachers participating in educational workshops to enjoy using ARTstor images in their K-12 classrooms. The stunning ARTstor images of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise and its conservation, a beautiful example of a Mellon Foundation-funded project, will serve our lecturers and students well during the upcoming exhibition of the Gates here at the Art Institute. Finally, the images which the Art Institute of Chicago has contributed to ARTstor are a convenient way for outside users to study and appreciate the wonderful objects in our museum collection."

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The Museum Educators License

The Museum Educators License is designed to help museum educators work with teachers in their communities to integrate the study of museum collections and other ARTstor content into K-12 curricula.

In order to provide teachers with images from ARTstor, museum education departments follow a few simple steps:

We hope that the Museum Educators License, which has been prompted by feedback from museum educators, will facilitate their work with teachers and help develop the visual thinking skills of K-12 students. Please do not hesitate to contact User Services with any questions or concerns you may have. User Services can be reached by email at userservices@artstor.org or by phone at 888.278.0079.