“Vase of Flowers” by Preston Dickinson (American, New York, New York 1889–1930 Irun, Spain) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (MET) public domain collection are now free for anyone to use under Creative Commons Zero licensing. The MET has 375,000 images in the collection, which can be downloaded from the museum’s website or through the Creative Commons search. All of the images can be used in your courses, whether online, hybrid, or face-2-face. The MET isn’t the only Creative Commons image resource available online.

Through the same Creative Commons search portal mentioned above, you can also search for images in the public domain collection of the New York Public Library and the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands. In addition, the search portal includes Flickr and 500px photograph filters. Flickr also has it’s own Creative Commons search site which is categorized  by the type of license, including the Public Domain Dedication (CC0). Not sure about other Creative Commons resources or what the different licenses mean? Visit the Creative Commons website for information on licenses, platforms, and how to apply for a license for your own original work.