The February edition of the CPL Internet Gazette is online now!! Don\’t forget to sign up for the mailing list. This month, the articles include Image Search Engines, Black History Month, and more. Here is the article on Image Search Engines.
\”Many of the search engine companies have begun to apply multimedia capabilities to their repertoire. AltaVista, Go, Excite , Fast, and Yahoo have all started offering this service, with no doubt more to be added in the future. There are web sites out there, however, whose primary duty is searching for images. Besides the web sites mentioned above, this article will discuss two of these sites as well as a fee-based database entitled The Associated Press Archive, which we subscribe to here in Suffolk County.\”
The February edition of the CPL Internet Gazette is online now!! Don\’t forget to sign up for the mailing list. This month, the articles include Image Search Engines, Black History Month, and more. Here is the article on Image Search Engines.
\”Many of the search engine companies have begun to apply multimedia capabilities to their repertoire. AltaVista, Go, Excite , Fast, and Yahoo have all started offering this service, with no doubt more to be added in the future. There are web sites out there, however, whose primary duty is searching for images. Besides the web sites mentioned above, this article will discuss two of these sites as well as a fee-based database entitled The Associated Press Archive, which we subscribe to here in Suffolk County.\”
\”The AltaVista image engine enables the user to search for photos, graphics, buttons/banners, color and/or black and white images. If all or some of these features are wanted, they can all be used in the search query. As with many of the engines that will be mentioned, this engine uses its search technology to scour the web and bring back \”relevant\” images. AltaVista also contains a primitive image directory, hot image searches, and image galleries.
The people at Go have created a very nice image directory to go along with their search engine. When one clicks on the preferred image, a larger version of that image will appear along with the width, height, image URL, source, and description of that particular picture. The image size varies, but rarely grows larger than 3 inches in length and width, which was a deterrent for me.
Excite\’s Photosearch provides two databases: member photos (photos sent in by Excite members) and news photos, updated every hour from Reuters and Associated Press. After performing the search, nine images are shown. After the image is clicked on, a larger version of the image is displayed, with the option to download it or make it larger or smaller. This larger/smaller preference is a perfect addition to image search capabilities.
Fast Search has recently incorporated a multimedia search into its large indexed database. To search for images, simply use the pull down menu and type in your query and ten images will be displayed at one time. Here, many additional options will come into the fold including transparent or non-transparent backgrounds, different image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP), and different types (Color, Gray, or Line Art). Of course, all of these selections can be searched at one time. A larger version of the image appears when it is clicked on.
Yahoo also has an image search gallery, with a wonderful web directory (would you expect anything else from them). Although more of an e-commerce site than anything else (they charge three dollars to download a larger version where Excite will do this for free), this directory does have nice sample images that can be copied and pasted into documents, web pages, etc.
The first of the two image-only search engines is Ditto, which is the first one I use when looking for pictures or clip art. Ditto allows the user to search for Web images, those from the Getty collection, and/or from Reuters. The images can be viewed in detailed or compact format, and the number of images viewed per page can be selected. In addition, there is a small \”Ditto Directory\” as well as a featured collection. After an image is selected, two new windows will open, one with the image, and the other with the site from where the image was taken. Ditto is a wonderful resource.
The other image-only search engine (new to my repertoire) is Free Foto. For those who like to browse through web directories rather than search for images, Free Foto does not have as big an index as those previously mentioned, but it is useful.
For the past 2 years, I have only mentioned free sites in the CPL Internet Gazette, but it would be, in my opinion, criminal not to mention the Associated Press Archive database when discussing image searching. We have access to it here in Suffolk County and it has been a wonderful addition to our electronic resources. Briefly, this database allows a search through the archives of the Associated Press photographs. The photos have annotations attached to them and can be search by keyword, subject, and year. This is a must for every public library or public library system.
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