Some Digital Image Resources

There are hundreds of wonderful image databases on the web, most of which are unfortunately either not accessible or not indexed by search engines at the item level.  In other words, you can search for specific keywords for which an image in one of these databases is a perfect match, but it won't come back.  Many of these databases are maintained by libraries, rare book rooms, and educational institutions.  Finding complete lists of these collections is tough - and often you just find them happenstance in searching or by word of mouth. 

ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez recently published a reasonably good list of some of the more major image databases out there in their post Digital Image Resources on the Deep Web.  The term "deep web" is arguable, but the images themselves are mostly part of the "invisible web."  In either case, it does make these images more difficult to find.  It's cases like this that make me long for a day when database-driven content is just as discoverable and just as accessible through major search engines.  A girl can dream.