What happens if VRC staff can’t find an existing high-quality digital image for you, scan one from a published source, or request a file at no cost from a museum, gallery, or studio? The VRC may be able to purchase an image from a commercial vendor, archive, museum, or other repository on your behalf. Please contact visualresources@uchicago.edu to inquire how to proceed. Generally, we follow these guidelines:
- The VRC can only pay for an image file. We cannot pay for copyright permission, licensing, or other publishing fees. (Depending on the vendor’s terms, you may be able to publish the image—the VRC can discuss with you.)
- The VRC can only purchase an image file if the vendor allows us ingest the file into our LUNA database for teaching and research purposes. Similarly, we cannot embargo images purchased by the VRC, they must be made available in LUNA promptly.
- The VRC’s budget for purchasing images fluctuates throughout the fiscal year. Funds are available on a first-come, first-served rolling basis.
- This policy is meant for purchasing one-off images or small numbers of images at one time. If you need access to a large research corpus of images or an entire database project, please write to Bridget Madden to discuss.