The Visual Resources Center provides images for teaching and research in the history of art as well as for studio art and other disciplines in our academic community.

In 2001, in collaboration with the Jean and Alexander Heard Library, the transition to digital resources began on a course-by-course basis with the scanning of slides and print material. To date, our Digital Image Collection contains 27,000 images for educational use across campus. We also have a collection of 29,000 licensed images from Archivision, Saskia, Ltd., Hartill Art Associates, Davis Art Images, and The Bridgeman Art Library, which are available through the Madison Digital Image Database (MDID). We will be using this web application for the storage, retrieval, and presentation of digital images in teaching beginning fall 2009.

Our slide collection represents the history of world art and architecture; it served as our department’s primary teaching tool from the 1960s until 2001. As of summer 2009, our collection of approximately 160,000 catalogued slides will be archived in a climate-controlled facility maintained by the Library’s Special Collections.