One goal of our blog is to offer Eastern students, faculty & staff a closer look at the many resources we offer. This week’s post focuses on AP Images, the library’s subscription image database. It is a great resource for high-quality, downloadable images that can easily be added to presentations, reports, projects, etc.

AP Images is accessible by visiting the library’s website, clicking on “Databases“, and choosing it from our list. If you are off-campus, first sign into your MyAthens account.

Overview

• Access over 4.6 million photographs dating back to 1826
• Listen to 4,500+ hours of audio files dating back to the 1920s
• Content provided by the Associate Press, which has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other news agency
• Fully licensed for educational research & use

Specialized Searches

• Concept Search
  Search for concepts corresponding to the idea(s) a photograph displays. In the search box, simply type the concept term followed by a colon and then the word concept. Examples-
  • happy:concept
    
  • freedom:concept
  • celebration:concept
• Color Search
  A color search returns images that possess the same dominant color. You can search for 10 hues- yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, brown. In the search box, type the hue name followed by a colon and then the term hue. Examples-
  • purple:hue
    
  • yellow:hue
  • blue:hue
• Photo Type Search
  AP Images also allows you to search by photo type. You can search for photos that are portrait, aerial, pattern, silhouette, vertical, and horizontal. Type in the search box your search term, then type and followed by a colon and the term phototype. Examples-
  • Statue of Liberty and aerial:phototype

  

  • JFK and portrait:phototype
    
  • bird and silhouette:phototype
• Other specialized searches
  • Category
    
  • Obituary
  • APTOPIX (the top AP photographs selected throughout the day by picture editors around the world)

If you have any questions about the AP Image database, contact our Media & Digital Services Librarian, Andrea Reed areed@eastern.edu.