Visual Resources Collection on ArtSTOR

Below are instructions on how to search (there are two ways) for the VRC Collection on Artstor. Here, UT faculty and students will be able to find their recent image requests, as well as the general VRC Image Collection, which reflects decades of selected areas of study by UT Art and Art History faculty and students. In addition, the VRC images will be able to be viewed and selected alongside images from Artstor's own continuously growing Digital Library and Public Collections.  

Step 1  Go to Artstor

Step 2  Create an Account

Select the "Artstor Digital Library", and create a free Artstor account, if you do not already have one. It is very easy to do.  

This "Log in to your account" will allow you to gain access to the VRC Collection, which is only accessible to UT faculty, staff and students. At this time, the "Log in through your Institution" is not available. The log in also allows use of all features on the Artstor site. Off campus, Artstor will ask for your EID and password and then you log in to your Artstor account.  On campus or away, you will need to log in to use the site effectively.  

Step 3  One way to search - Search within the VRC Collection

Once you have logged in through UT, you will see a box that lists the University of Texas - Art and Art History Visual Resources Collection under Institutional Collections, midway down on the right. 

Click on this box.  

You then will be on the search page for the VRC Collection. Here you can do searches by author, title, scan request, accession number, etc. (See the UTL LibGuide listed in the box at the top right for excellent information on searching in Artstor.) Then, check the box "Search within collection" and click the search icon. You will see images only from the VRC Collection.

Step 4   Another way to search - Choosing among the VRC, Artstor Digital Library, and Public Collections

You can also use the Artstor general search box to do searches and and not check the "Search within results box". Once your search has resulted in images, look to the left, under Collection Type and you will see how many images are in the Artstor Digital Library, how many are in the Institutional Collections (this is the UTL VRC Collection and it is the only Institution you will see or have access to), and how many are in Public Collections. 

You can limit your search to images which are only in the VRC Collection by choosing "Institutional" and clicking on that tab. Or you can enlarge your viewing group by allowing all three categories in you search.  From here, you can form you images into groups, share those groups with others within UT, easily place the images in a PowerPoint, or export tne images to your desktop in a Zip File.  Both the LibGuide and the Artstor tutorials listed at the right will help you explore all of these functions.

Step 5  Viewing Selected Images from UT Collections and Exhibitions

Within the VRC collection are selected groups of images from some UT Campus Art Collections, as well as some exhibitions these Collections have held. A list of the Collections is given in the box to the right. To browse all the images the VRC has of one of these collections, you can search the name of the Collection in the general search box. At the left you will see the particular images that come from that UT Collection listed as the Institutional (VRC) Collection. Click on the Institutional tab.

In order to narrow your search for images within these UT collections, more carefully define your choice of search terms in the general search box, giving the name of the desired UT Collection and the artist, exhibition title, subject, etc., you wish to find, such as: Blanton Hans Hofmann; Warfield In Their Own Form; or Art and Art History Collection Peruvian ceramics.