Open Media Collections

Open Educational Resources

Images
Videos & Films
Audio & Music
Images

• A.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

  From the site: “The materials in this repository include information by and about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Most materials were published by USACE, but some collections contain materials by other government agencies written about USACE. All content is contributed by offices throughout USACE.”

• American Memory 

  From the site: “American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning.”

• Art Images for College Teaching 

  From the site: “Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) began as a personal project dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.”

• Digital Archive of American Architecture 

  This archive consists of nearly 1,500 digitized images of American architecture (280 buildings) plus explanatory material.

• Digital Archive of Art – Boston College 

• Digital Public Library of America – Images 

  From the site: “DPLA Images lets you search the Digital Public Library of America, a collection of millions of cultural heritage objects from libraries, archives, and museums across the country, for images. Enter a search term, or click “surprise me” for a treat. Clicking on each result opens up the image’s description, if available, and a link to view the object on the DPLA website.”

• Europeana Collections 

  More than 51 million artworks, artifacts, books, videos & sounds from Europe.

• Flowing Data 

  From the site: “FlowingData explores how statisticians, designers, data scientists, and others use analysis, visualization, and exploration to understand data and ourselves.”

• Free to Use & Reuse 

  This page features items from the Library of Congress’s digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use. Each set of content is based on a theme and is first featured on the Library’s home page.

• Look & Learn – Historical images, many of which are licensed under Creative Commons, from institutions like the Rijksmuseum, Metropolitan Museum, Wellcome Collection, Musee Carnavalet, Smithsonian, and New York Public Library. 
• NASA Images 
• National Archives Digital Photography Collections 

• National Cancer Institute Visuals 

  NCI Visuals Online contains images from the collections of the Office of Communications and Public Liaison, National Cancer Institute.

• National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Photo Library 

  From the site: “The NOAA Photo Library has been built so as to capture the work, observations, and studies that are carried on by the scientists, engineers, commissioned officers, and administrative personnel that make up this complex and scientifically diverse agency.”

• National Park Service Historic Photos Collection 

  From the site: “The National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection is comprised of more than two million images which cover a wide variety of subjects: Park architecture, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Native American heritage, NPS personnel, roads and transportation, scenic views, and much more.”

• Pexels 

  Free stock images.

• The Public Domain Review – Images 

  From the site: “Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.”

• The Sociological Cinema – Pics 

  From the site: “We started as a database of annotated video clips, and have since expanded into other forms of media to engage students in teaching and learning. Readers can now browse our blog for essays and podcasts about pedagogy, media, and pop culture; find images on Pinterest for presentations or learning about sociological topics; engage in conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr; and explore curated content on our modules page.”

• U.S. Department of Agriculture Photo Gallery 

  The NRCS Photo Gallery contains natural resource and conservation related photos from across the USA.

• U.S. Department of Defense 

• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Digital Library 

  From the site: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video.”

• U.S. National Library of Medicine 

  Contains archives, films, photographs, rare books and journals and lectures.

• United States Antarctic Program 

• University of Washington Fashion Plate Collection 

  From the site: “The information for Fashion Plate Collection was researched and prepared by the UW Libraries Special Collections and Cataloging staff in 2002. Not all the plates from the collection were included in this database: the database consists of 417 digital images chosen from a larger group of fashion plates.”

Videos & Films

• Archive.org – Feature Films 
  From the site: “Feature films, shorts, silent films and trailers are available for viewing and downloading.”
• Europeana Collections 
  More than 51 million artworks, artifacts, books, videos & sounds from Europe.
• Films for Action 
  From the site: “Films For Action is a community-powered learning library for people who want to change the world.”
• Indiana University Clio Awards Collection 
  Indiana University media collection of Clio Award videos.
• Khan Academy 
  From the site: “Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. Our math missions guide learners from kindergarten to calculus using state-of-the-art, adaptive technology that identifies strengths and learning gaps. We’ve also partnered with institutions like NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, The California Academy of Sciences, and MIT to offer specialized content.”
• NASA Videos 
• Open Culture 
  From the site: “Watch 1,150 movies free online. Includes classics, indies, film noir, documentaries and other films, created by some of our greatest actors, actresses and directors. The collection is divided into the following categories: Comedy & Drama; Film Noir, Horror & Hitchcock; Westerns (many with John Wayne); Martial Arts Movies; Silent Films; Documentaries, and Animation. We also have special collections of Oscar Winning Movies and Films by Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin.”
• The Public Domain Review – Film 
  From the site: “Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.”
• The Sociological Cinema 
  From the site: We started as a database of annotated video clips, and have since expanded into other forms of media to engage students in teaching and learning. Readers can now browse our blog for essays and podcasts about pedagogy, media, and pop culture; find images on Pinterest for presentations or learning about sociological topics; engage in conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr; and explore curated content on our modules page.”
• TED Talks 
  From the site: “TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world. TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. On TED.com, we’re building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world’s most inspired thinkers — and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, both online and at TED and TEDx events around the world, all year long.” – TED.com
• U.S. Department of Defense 
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Digital Library 
  From the site: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video.”
• U.S. National Library of Medicine 
  Contains archives, films, photographs, rare books and journals and lectures.
• World War and Society in the Twentieth Century: World War II Open Learning Course 
  The free video lectures of this course are made available as part of Harvard Extension School’s Opening Learning Initiative.”The course World War and Society in the Twentieth Century: World War II is a thematic exploration of the war and its time through feature films, primary sources, and scholarly interpretations.”

Audio & Music

• Europeana Collections 
  More than 51 million artworks, artifacts, books, videos & sounds from Europe.
• Frequencies Podcast – University of British Columbia 
  From the site: “Join the Library for Frequencies, a podcast series where UBC researchers discuss their research in a new, accessible format. Every season revolves around an emerging topic or current event, with different episodes tackling the issue from different perspectives.”
• LibriVox 
  Free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world.
• Open Music Library 
  From the site: “The Open Music Library is an initiative from Alexander Street to build the world’s largest free index of digital resources for the study of music. Curated by a community of music scholars, students, teachers and librarians, the Open Music Library brings together peer-reviewed journal articles, books and music scores from the world’s digital collections.”
• The Public Domain Review – Audio 
  From the site: “Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.”
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Digital Library 
  From the site: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video.”
• University of Oxford Podcasts 
• Audio Archive 
  Download or listen to free music and audio.

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