Are you looking for images to support your next PowerPoint presentation? Depending on what you need, you may be able to find it online, or you may want to create your own.
Images on the Web are like any other intellectual property--copyright laws apply. If your use is educational or scholarly, the principle of “fair use” usually allows you to display an image, with proper attribution. Think of it as including a quotation and providing a citation.
However, if your use is for pay or publication, you will need to obtain permission from the owner of the material in order to use it. Are your slides are going to be mounted on a conference Web site following your presentation? That’s a publication. Make sure you get permission in writing (email is fine) or can document that the original owner stipulates free use.
So with copyright in mind, what are some of your options for finding multimedia?
Google Image Search
International in scope, covering JPG, GIF and PNG files, Google offers one of the largest indexes of images available on the Web. Advanced search features include limits by size of image and by type of color, by source domain, and of course, by descriptive keyword. Keywords are drawn from context and captions around the original image.
For example, a search for “hepatitis C virus” returned 589 images, ranging from illustrations and models of the virus itself to images associated with brochures and presentations about the virus (author, treatment guideline charts, geographic representations of occurrence, etc.).
Bristol Biomed Image Archive
Hosted by the University of Bristol, UK, this database of over 20,000 images on all kinds of health-related topics is searchable by keyword or browsing. A statement of acceptable use gives wide berth for scholarly purposes.
Public Health Image Library
A service of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), this site offers a catalog of the CDC’s image collection. Content is organized into hierarchical categories of people, places, and science, and is presented as single images, image sets, and multimedia files. Visitors are invited to use CDC images for reference, teaching, presentation, and public health messages.
HONmedia
The Health on the Net Foundation provides a repository of over 3,000 medical images and videos, pertaining to 1,700 topics and themes. New image links are constantly being added from the Web. HONmedia is searchable by keyword, alphabetical index, or a 3-step “guided search.”
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)
The IHM database is a catalog of the prints and photographs collection of the National Library of Medicine. Over 60,000 items are searchable by keyword or browse features. Assistance is available online for copyright interpretation.
Many image repositories are devoted to special topics, such as Gray’s Anatomy, the Visible Human Project, Harvard’s Whole Brain Atlas, Tulane’s Big Picture Book of Viruses, or the Dermatology Image Databank at the University of Utah. Sites like these turn up in Google’s Web search engine when you look for pictures and the name of the specialty.
Last, but not least, you will sometimes just need to create your own images. Jefferson’s Medical Media Services unit is at your disposal to develop graphics, create posters, take photographs, and even produce videos. Services and fees are posted online.
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