Unlike thousands of other teachers or librarians, I have had the unique privilege to chaperone high school students on school-sponsored trips to other countries and around the United States. During each of these trips, I encouraged (OK, dragged) students to various museums and art galleries to provide "cultural enlightenment" through the world's most famous works of art. During a recent trip with my daughter's class to New York City, a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art provided enough excitement that some students purchased art books to remember those pieces with which they were most impressed.

That excitement of seeing famous works of art from both well-known and private collections can now be experienced through H.W. Wilson's Art Museum Image Gallery database. With this unique image database, students, teachers, and librarians can easily access the world's finest collections in the comfort of their school libraries with just a click of the mouse.

Grades 6–12+

Cost For K—12 school libraries, rates are set according to enrollment: 25 cents per student, with a minimum of $350. Costs for school districts and public libraries start at $1,300. Contact Wilson for custom rate quotes. A free, 30-day trial is available.

The Big Picture H.W. Wilson's Art Museum Image Gallery provides over 155,000 images (bolstered by an addition of 62,500 images through an arrangement with the Art Archive of the Picture Desk, Inc.). H.W. Wilson launched the Art Museum Image Gallery to replace the AMICO Library which was discontinued in 2005 with the dissolution of the AMICO consortium.

Containing works from 3000 B.C. to the 20th century, Art Museum Image Gallery is a fine art and historical image library with treasures from over 1,800 distinguished sources worldwide. Included in this collection are artifacts from ancient civilizations; American, European and Medieval history; world religions; and classical music; in addition to iconic images from the history of art and architecture. Images within the resource are drawn from the collections of the most respected museums of Europe, Africa, North and South America, and Asia.

A complete list of the museums and collections contributing images to the database is available at www.hwwilson.com/databases/artmuseum_museums.htm.

Full bibliographic records accompany every image, and each one is offered in three sizes including a high resolution based on the traditional 1024 × 760 pixel sizing. The images are all rights cleared for educational use.

Look & Feel: H.W. Wilson's Art Museum Image Gallery provides easy-to-use access for students and teachers. Users will be able to quickly determine how to search by locating the options listed on the left-hand side of the homepage. A Basic Search provides a single search box with the word "find" above it, while an Advanced Search provides users with the option to select and limit terms used within a query. Results include thumbnail images for preview.

Images include full bibliographic details such as the artist, the materials and techniques used, the date the work was created, the artist's date and place of birth, the dimensions of the work, the owner of the piece, and much more.

Students may select the Help button to quickly access a menu. An Online Tour of the database is available to help users better understand the contents and depth of the collection. In addition, a complete tutorial of how to search an image database is also available.

How It Works Unlike most text databases, searching an image database can be a bit more challenging to the novice art student who is unfamiliar with the specific types of art, historical periods, or specific artists. However, the Art Museum Image Gallery provides images that can be located by searching Keyword, Subject, Artist, Ownership, Type of Work, Type of Object, Creation Year, Culture, or Nationality. Coverage includes fine and decorative art such as paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, textiles, costumes, jewelry, ceramics, furniture, glass, books and manuscripts, archaeological finds, and more.

Students may choose the Basic Search that provides a simple search box where a term can be entered or the Advanced Search, which includes searching by Keyword, Subject, Title, Abstract, Artist, Artist dates, Document type, Materials and Techniques, Nationality, Object Type, Location of the Work, Physical Description, and Update Code. (An Update Code contains the year, month, and day in which the record was added to the database. This way students can search for a single date or for a range of dates.)

Students may also browse the database by Document Type, Full Text Indicator, Location of Work, Nationality, Object Type, Physical Description, Publication Year, Subject, or Update Code. Included in the Physical Description search is the option to select the art type such as Digital Arts, Audio-Video formats, Performance Arts, Posters, Books, Costumes and Jewelry, and more.

Results can be sorted by 23 different parameters, including relevance, date, artist, object type, and century. Limiters include years, document types, physical descriptions, and page images. A Search History allows students to review previous queries and reconstruct a search and a Thesaurus is available to provide students with a list of suggested subject headings and related terms to use in the database's controlled vocabulary. Students may print, e-mail, or save their results and Create Alerts can be set up to notify students when new materials are added to the database. Once a work is located, students may cite their source using the database's Citation Option, which provides an HTML citation, MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian: Humanities, or Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date.

The Art Museum Image Gallery database can support unique research projects for a wide range of subjects such as humanities, literature, history, religion, science, and even technology applications. For example, a search for Leonardo da Vinci alone can bring a wide range of subject specialty art ranging from the Mona Lisa (located in the Louvre in Paris) to the Attack Cart and War Machine (located in a Private Collection in Italy).

Using the term "science" as a keyword search term provided 1966 images ranging from 20th century photographs to drawings all related to science or scientific developments and inventions. The term "literature" provided over 2,200 images of writers, portraits, prints, and illustrations that could be used to enhance the study of specific types of literature, various authors, or time periods. (Even the term "pop-up book" provided a unique example of an Italian pop-up book from the 1960s—a great example to share with elementary teachers or school librarians.)

Assignments that provide students with the opportunity to investigate specific time periods, methods, or techniques can retrieve hundreds of images that will allow students to fully appreciate the wealth of art in various museums around the world.

For Students and Teachers Teachers can use the Art Museum Image Gallery works in class lectures, assignments, academic presentations, and with password-protected course Web sites. The images provide a unique opportunity to visually enhance the curriculum. Aside from being an essential program for art history, studio art, and design classes, the Art Museum Image Gallery can provide support for theater departments for research on set design, period costumes, and period furniture.

Through creative lesson design, teachers in history, science, art, drama, and school media can also collaborate to bring together projects that enhance the students' visual understanding of the time period, the people involved, the impact of world events on the culture, and the importance of preserving these types of resources for future generations.

Students can use Art Museum Image Gallery works for research papers and classroom assignments, as well as for personal research and enjoyment.

Because of the unique contents and continued updates provided by H.W. Wilson, students can now enjoy a world of art that may have once been appreciated by only a privileged few. Students can not only locate images that are a world away, but also "visit" private collections that may never find their way to the Internet, or even a museum.

For librarians who subscribe to Art Image Museum Gallery as well as other H.W. Wilson art databases such as Art Full Text or Art Index Retrospective, the ability to run simultaneous searches provides users with an astonishing breadth of resources.

Report Card H.W. Wilson's Art Museum Image Gallery database provides unique works of art that can be easily accessed and used by students from upper elementary school through college. With a user-friendly interface, students can easily find images that can be used for educational purposes that make instructional assignments much less questionable for both teachers and librarians.

For libraries searching for resources to meet the needs of special subject areas such as art, humanities, drama, and history, H.W. Wilson's Art Museum Image Gallery provides a visual explosion of content that will supplement course content. While the Art Museum Image Gallery database may never replace the art class field trip to a world-renowned art museum, it certainly deserves an A+ for providing the finest content from around the world for any student to access on a daily basis.