Visual Media Collection

The Visual Media Collection consists of over 290,000 color and black & white slides chronicling the history of the art and architecture of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The collection is particularly strong in Manuscripts, Chinese Painting, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, Surrealism, African, and Precolumbian Art. Additionally, the collection supports a constantly growing archive of digital images.

The Visual Media Collection was developed by Art History faculty, starting in the 1950s, to meet the visual needs for teaching and learning on campus.

The VMC is open for use by:

Faculty
Graduate Students
University College Instructors
Faculty in the School of Continuing Studies
Northwestern Alumni
Undergraduate students*, for class participation (only three hour loan).
* The student's instructor is responsible for the safe and prompt return of slides.

Patrons may select slides no more than three days in advance of use and may place them the Slide Library's reserve shelf until check-out. The charge for overdue slides is $.50 per slide per day; the charge for lost slides (including slides more than five days late) is $7.50 each.

The Visual Media Collection OPAC site can be used to search for slides with links to the Digital Image Library for those that have already been digitized.

For more information please contact Nicole Finzer.

Cataloging and Categorization

The Visual Media Collection uses a local system to organize and file our slides and digital media. The slide drawers are divided into broad catagories by media. The media catagories are then broken down into time periods and the time periods. The time periods are then divided by country. The major catagories are listed here. Further catagorization information, including that of non-western and ancient art, can be found by clicking here.