Services & Support

The Visual Resources Center (VRC) provides academic guidance and resources to students. In addition, the VRC supports Art Department faculty in gathering resources for instruction and coursework. Learn more about the specific services, resources, equipment and workshops we have available to students and faculty below.

Image Help

Get image support for assignments, presentations, theses, and research projects. We provide assistance on image research, copyright analysis, image permissions, image licensing, and image citations.

If you need help finding a high-resolution image, contacting a repository or licensing an image, complete the form below. All images submitted through the form are added to the Reed Digital Collection.

Image Request Form

Digitization

We can guide you on digitizing your photos, 2D, and 3D creative work using equipment in the VRC. Find equipment dimensions below and select the best option for your project.

Scanners
Access high-resolution flatbed scanners with email capability, format versatility, and USB connectivity.

Epson Expression 12000XL
Scans up to 48 frames of 35mm negatives, 30 slides, eight frames of 4 x 5 inch transparencies. This scanner is ideal for scanning photos, documents, drawings, film slides, and 35 mm film strips.
- Dimensions: 11 x 17 inches
- Resolution: 2400 x 4800 dpi
WideTek 24F
Complies with the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI). This scanner is ideal for large scale drawings and images in books.
- Dimensions: 18 x 24 inches
- Resolution: 1200 x 1200 dpi

Copy Stand Photo Room
The copy stand is a camera-based digitization room for large 2D or small to medium 3D works. It works best for digitizing artist books, maps, and other materials larger than 18 x 24 inches.

Resources

Anatomical Models
Check out 3D anatomical models of hands, a nose, a skull and more. Use these reference tools to practice drawing basic anatomical shapes. You can check these out at the VRC for up to 3 days!

View the List

Risograph
A Risograph or "RISO" looks like a regular photocopier but is actually a duplicator. RISO printing is ideal for students interested in printing posters, comic books, zines and other graphic art prints. Visit the Riso Guide below to make an appointment, find tutorials, templates, and more.

Learn More

Software
The VRC offers a dedicated guest computer equipped with Adobe Creative Cloud and Epson 2, alongside VueScan and Silverfast scanning software. We are the sole location within the library to provide these exclusive resources.

Art Faculty

Image Requests

One of the primary responsibilties of the VRC is to source images for instruction and coursework within the Art Department. The VRC can sometimes accommodate image requests from other departments. Please note that it may take 1 to 10 weeks to complete faculty image requests.

Complete the form and we will confirm the processing time of your request. Image Request Form

Course Galleries

The VRC creates and maintains online course galleries for the Art Department. Galleries are organized by individual lecture materials or an entire course. Faculty may find it useful to use these high-resolution images for class instruction and for supplementing Moodle materials, such as adding hyperlinks to images included in syllabi or assignment modules. Please reference the RDC Help webpage for guidance on how to use presentation mode, and download, and save images.

If needed, you can reach out for assistance with any of the above. Email Chloe

Instruction

We offer instructional workshop sessions to supplement courses and student learning including presentations, hands-on activities for skills-based learning, customizable projects, thesis support and more. Our current instructional workshops are listed below, and if you'd like to explore new topics or projects, please reach out to the Visual Resources Curator.

All instruction topics give an overview of the VRC services and resources available to students.

Instruction Topic #1: Learning Image Research

This session introduces students to scholarly image research and how it relates to their coursework. Students will learn how to use image databases, find scholarly images, and use metadata for advanced image searching.

Instruction Topic #2: Image Permissions, Copyright & Fair Use for Theses

This instruction focuses on giving students some valuable guidance on image use including permissions in their own theses. Students are given an overview of Fair Use in the visual arts, including licensing, copyright and more.

Instruction Topic #3: Citations for Images

Students will learn tips and tricks for citing images for scholarly work using MLA, Chicago, APA or Turabian. We'll review how the details from artwork can inform how we look for information. This session includes group activities using library databases and open access collections.

Workshop: Critical Cataloging (CritCat)

This workshop focuses on the modern practice of challenging outdated language and terminology used to describe art. Known as Critical Cataloging or CRITCAT in the Library field, this practice takes a look at the ethical use of words when we're writing about artwork. Students will learn about the benefits of using ethical citation practices.

Workshop: Risotto the Risograph

Option A: Tour the VRC, get a quick overview of how the Risograph works and a printing demo.
Option B: Instruction on the Risograph process, overview of the machine, printing demo, and printing activity.
Option C: Instruction on the Risograph process, overview of the machine, printing demo, activity, and course support for an assignment.

Ready to book your instruction or workshop? Email Chloe