Finding the perfect image to put on your website, brochure, or Facebook page can be tricky. It gets even more difficult if you’re making sure your photos are legal to use. That’s right! Legally, you can’t use any image you find on Google Images. Using these images opens your library up to possible lawsuits for copyright infringement. Instead, look for images that fall into the Public Domain or have a Creative Commons license.
Public Domain: The person who created this work has waived their rights to the image, or copyright has expired. This means that you can copy, change, distribute, and perform the work for commercial purposes without asking permission.
Creative Commons Licenses: These licenses allow creators to waive and reserve certain rights in regards to their work. This may include: if the image can be used for commercial purposes, if it needs creator attribution, and so on.
The following websites are full of free and ready-to-use images (as long as you follow the licensing restrictions) to make your library marketing a little more beautiful:
| Website | Free | User Account | Attribution | Notes |
| Artificial intelligence (AI) | Free and paid plans | Accounts likely needed | No | Generative AI tools (like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot) can generate images and graphics. In most cases, outputs from these AI tools are not protected by copyright. |
| Black Illustrations (Graphics) | Yes | No | No | "...a series of FREE digital designs of black people for your next online project." |
| Burst | Yes |
Low resolution: no account High resolution: account needed |
No | |
| Creative Commons | Yes | No | Some attribution may be required | |
| Digital Horizons | Some are free | No |
Attribution is requested
|
Only "public domain" or "no copyright" items can be used |
| Flickr (Creative Commons) | Yes | No | Various usage rights | "Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license." |
| Free Images | Yes | Account needed | Various usage rights | |
| Free Photos | Yes | No | No | |
| Freepik (Graphics) | Most are free | No | Attribution to Freepik | |
| Freerange | Yes | Account needed | No | |
| Gratisography | Yes | No | No | |
| Library of Congress | Yes | No | No | Free to use and reuse images from the Library of Congress |
| Nappy | Yes | No | No | "Beautiful photos of Black and Brown people, for free." |
| Negative Space | Yes | No | No | |
| New York Public Library | Yes | No | No | All images available at the link are in the public domain |
| North Dakota Media Library | Yes | Account needed | Attribution required | |
| North Dakota State Library | Yes | No | No | Free to use and reuse items in NDSL's digital collections |
| Pexels | Yes | No | No | |
| Pixabay | Yes | No | No | |
| Reshot (Graphics and photos) | Yes | No | No | |
| Smithsonian | Yes | No | No | All images available at the link are in the public domain |
| Stockvault | Most are free | No | No | |
| Unsplash | Yes | No | No | |
| Vecteezy (Graphics) | Most are free | No | Attribution to Vecteezy | |
| Wikimedia Commons | Yes | No | Some attribution may be required | Millions of freely usable images |
| WOCinTech Chat | Yes | No | Attribution required | "Stock photos for women of color in tech, now free to use." |
This page was written with sources from Angela Hursh's blog "Super Library Marketing."
The staff of the Digital Initiatives department at the North Dakota State Library are not lawyers, nor are they copyright experts. Digital Initiatives will provide help to the best of their ability, but any information provided does not constitute legal advice.
Many of these resources and programs are funded under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.