Research Guides: BIOL Biological Sciences Subject Guide: Image Databases

Image Databases

Image Databases

Explore the selection of open-access image databases, offering an array of scientific images for education and research in biology.

Open-i
This open-access biomedical image search engine in is Beta test but has good retrievals for most major biomedical topics. Open-i helps “users retrieve not only the MEDLINE citation information,
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but also the outcome statements in the article and the most relevant figure from it. Further, it is possible to use the figure as a query component to find other relevant images or other visually similar images.”
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)
A consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the biodiversity literature held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access
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and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.” The BHL also provides access to a vast collection of images extracted from their digitized books, journals, and archives.
Cell Image Library
The Cell Image Library is a publicly accessible, searchable archive of images, videos, and animations of cells from a variety of organisms. The library is designed to facilitate education, research, and collaboration
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by providing an image repository for both research and educational purposes.
National Science Foundation (NSF) Multimedia Gallery
The NSF Multimedia Gallery offers a wide range of science images, videos, and audio files, including those related to biological research. The gallery is useful for finding visual resources to support science
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education and communication.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. It includes a significant number of biology-related images, many of which are categorized under various
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sub-disciplines of biology.
BioImages: The Virtual Field-Guide (UK)
This site offers an enormous collection of photographs of wild species and natural history objects. It covers most groups of organisms with the exception of birds and other vertebrates.
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The criterion for inclusion of a species is that it must have been, or might be expected to be, found in Britain or Ireland. The photographs are presented to illustrate biodiversity and as an aid to identification.
FishBase
FishBase is a global species database of fish species. It provides comprehensive species data, including photos and drawings of fish, habitat information, and more. Ideal for research in ichthyology or marine biology.