LibGuides: Historic Preservation: Visual Resources

Materials Databases

Material Connexion This link opens in a new window
Coverage varies. Unlimited.
Material Connexion is the world’s leading material resource allowing users to browse thousands of innovative and sustainable materials from over 6000 manufacturers, learn about trending topics in materials, and source materials for projects.

Material Order
Powered by CollectionSpace (LYRASIS) and co-founded by Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Rhode Island School of Design, Material Order is the leading resource for design materials collections at academic and cultural institutions.

Visual Media Databases

Images

Archnet.org
Open access to a very unique set of resources related to the built environment of the Muslim world.

Catena: Digital Archive of Historic Gardens & Landscapes This link opens in a new window Most current file. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. A typologically organized archive of digital images with accompanying educational materials. The initial component of Catena is built around the villa, an important landscape type in garden history. Serves as an educational tool for teachers and scholars of landscape history affiliated with schools and universities. The images and intellectual content on this site should be used for educational purposes only.
Sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Note: Pop-up blockers on browsers must be disabled for viewing content.
Cities/Buildings Database This link opens in a new window Most current file. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Offers more than 5,000 images of buildings from across time and throughout the world. Search for buildings by country, city, style, title of building, architect and/or date of construction.
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey This link opens in a new window 1933 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Since 2000, documentation from the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) has been added to the holdings. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes. This online presentation of the HABS/HAER/HALS collections includes digitized images of measured drawings, black-and-white photographs, color transparencies, photo captions, written history pages, and supplemental materials.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive to support scholarship and teaching. Includes archives of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.

For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide

RIBApix Digitized images from the Royal Institution of British Architects collections

VADS (Visual Arts Data Services) This link opens in a new window Most current file. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides a central resource of over 100, 000 high quality digital images from across a range of visual arts subjects (including applied arts, architecture, design, fine art and media) from across the UK.

Video

Art and Architecture In Video This link opens in a new window Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
A collection of documentaries and interviews illustrating the theory and practice of a variety of art forms and providing the context necessary for critical analysis. The collection spans time period and region, including coverage of the Renaissance, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Modern, and Contemporary Art. In addition to art history and theory, the collection addresses applied topics such as architectural and graphic design. The breadth of coverage makes this collection integral to both scholarship and technique, providing access to the seminal artists and works who continue to inspire the artists, architects, designers and critics of today.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
This streaming service has a catalog of over 30,000 titles covering various educational topics and feature films for some 800 producers including Criterion, Documentary Educational Resources, New Day Films, Media Education, California Newsreel, PBS and others.
Titles streamed by Kanopy are available either directly from the library catalog or from the UT Kanopy interface linked above. Some titles on the UT Kanopy interface are not immediately available to UT community for streaming. Those titles for which we do not hold streaming rights could be requested by filling in a request form. This form would appear on your screen and forwarded to a staff member for consideration. Given our limited funds, we emphasize study and research needs when making purchase decisions.
OnArchitecture This link opens in a new window Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
OnArchitecture is an online audiovisual service providing a synthetic, deep and detailed panorama of the world's main authors, works, experiences and problematics related to the field of architecture. OnArchitecture's collection features original videos, such as interviews, buildings and installations, all of this enriched with a selection of complementary material documents and audiovisuals about the main authors and figures of contemporary architecture.

Looking for Maps

The links below will take you to resources within which you can search for maps. If you need a tool to create your own map, please see the Mapping Tools tab on this Guide. In addition to the links, you can also search the library catalog for maps. In the advanced search, please select Maps and Atlases or Maps (Manuscripts) in the Material Type.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (PCLMC), comprising more than 350,000 items representing all areas of the world. Includes online and physical collections, maps of Texas, thematic, topographical, historical, weather, and much more! The PCLMC consists of the physical collection and an online collection of scanned maps. The Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Room (PCL 1.306) houses the physical maps, the majority of which can be checked out. Since 1995, the PCLMC has digitized 70,000 maps from the print collection and has also forged partnerships with local and national archives to create a more comprehensive online map collection.
The Briscoe
The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History's Research and Collections Division houses more than 35,000 printed and manuscript maps which date from 1513 to the present. These cartographic resources depict many geographic areas throughout the world, but their special strengths relate to Texas, the U.S. South, the U.S. Southwest, and Mexico. The Briscoe Center's maps have been acquired individually or as discrete, previously assembled collections or have been separated from archival and manuscript collections.
City of Austin: GIS and Maps
General Land Office: Archive Map Store
General Land Office: GIS Maps and Data
General Land Office: Land Grant Search
Library of Congress: Sandborn Map Collection
Search by state, country - Mexico, Cuba, and Canada, or building type
Library of Congress Map Collection
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps - Texas (1877-1922), Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer
USGS EarthExplorer

More Resources

For more information on visual resources: