ARTstor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ARTstor is a non-profit organization which operates the ARTstor Digital Library, a collection of digital images of artwork available for non-commercial and educational use. Participating institutions pay a subscription fee to ARTstor in exchange for access, which is provided via a Java-applet based Web interface.

ARTstor is a creation of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; its board is presently chaired by Neil L. Rudenstine, former President of Harvard University.

ARTstor was set up as a sister organisation to JSTOR to do the same job, using a similar subscription model; it began to function in 2004.^[1] It gained considerable impetus after the disbanding in 2005 of Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) — an online system for images of artworks, set up by a Getty Foundation-led consortium of institutions. It has gained the use of many existing image databases, and has digitised for the first time The Illustrated Bartsch, the largest catalogue for old master prints. It has reached a total of 700,000 images in 2007. With two exceptions in London, listed subscribers are all in the USA and Canada.