Beginning with the Mellon Foundation in the 1990s, Artstor has been a mainstay of the digital image landscape for decades. Since 2015, the Visual Resources Collection (VRC)’s local image collection of now over 193,000 images has been available in Artstor side by side with their 2.5 million images. Over the past year, the VRC has been collaborated with Special Collections to create a new institutional Artstor collection: JHU Sheridan Libraries, Special Collections.
We are now about to enter a new era in the evolution of Artstor. As noted on their Artstor on JSTOR libguide, “JSTOR launched a project to bring Artstor to JSTOR, to create a robust platform for discovering and working with both text and images. Throughout 2021 and into 2022, images from Artstor collections are being added to JSTOR, and JSTOR platform features and functionality are evolving to support work with multiple formats of research materials. The Artstor Digital Library will be supported at least through the 2021-2022 academic year.” In fact, all of the JHU local collections have been available in JSTOR for the past year.
For more information about the transition, see this overview, this updates page, or email the VRC. Currently, searching and discovery are still in-progress—the VRC recommends testing Artstor on JSTOR, but continuing to use Artstor for your image needs at this time. Please contact the VRC if you have any questions or need assistance.
JHU is one of ten institutions around the world currently participating in ITHAKA’s beta testing program. Take a look at Artstor on JSTOR and do some experimenting! If you have any feedback or thoughts to share, email the VRC or contact JSTOR Support or Artstor Support directly