TAMVISION’S CAMERA OPERATORS KAUNO PELTOLA, LASSE KOSKINEN AND TUOMO KURIKKA POSE NEXT TO TELEVISION CAMERAS AT FRENCKELL’S STUDIO IN TAMPERE, 1.2.1965

Upgrading my Lecture Slides

A major task of every person I know from working in research is to hold presentations. Whether you go to a conference, give presentations in doctoral consortia or lecture a course: self-speaking presentations are important for your career. So are the slides and pictures you choose to transfer your views and perspectives. In the following I give a brief overview about the sources I use regularly for images and illustrations within my lectures, seminars and web projects.

A good colleague of mine just asked me to send her some information on where to find good images and illustrations on the web. Even so the web is full of such images, copyright law is strict for those of us, who use these images in public and not for private purposes. (Opposing to the US law there is now „fair use“ in Europe. Hence, copyright becomes more complicated for us europeans.)

-> tl;dr: Bring me to the list of web libraries (‚free‘ illustrations, icons, audio, and video)

Keep an Eye out for public domain (aka C0)

Public domain pictures are easy to implement and integrate. Some people open their work under public domain rights. In most cases this enables us to use their work. (In some cases, they do not possess the complete rights on their work; another topic for another day) Look out for C0-licensed pictures…

Look for creative commons licenses, like cc-by or cc-by-sa; avoid cc-by-nc

Creative commons licenses are another type of license that is very handy for lecturers and scientists. We are totally aware of the good practice of citing good work (or should be). This is all that is expected from you, if you use images under cc-by licenses. Sometimes you’ll find images with the additive „share alike“ (sa). This license is contagious (for techies: it is similar to GNU). If you use an sa-licensed image, your work has to be licensed in the same way. There is a rich discussion on the „nc“-addition, spelled „non commercial“. As you most likely intend to use the image for a professional presentation (even if you are hired by a public institution). I skip each and every work marked by „non commercial“, as it is by far too complicated for my daily business to think about the effects of using such images. (There is a good – but sadly German – handbook on the nc-module, if you are interested.)

Some libraries, that I can recommend

Besides using the most obvious candidates – Flickr, Google Images, Vimeo and Youtube – for openly licensed pictures and videos I want to give an overview about the other web services I use regularly:

Pictures and illustrations

http://www.imcreator.com/free
http://getrefe.tumblr.com/archive
http://superfamous.com
http://www.gratisography.com/
https://unsplash.com/
https://picjumbo.com/
(Some good collections of professionally made photographs)

http://allthefreestock.com/
(AllTheFreeStock is a meta-search engine. You can search multiple libraries using one webservice.)

http://littlevisuals.co/
(Used to be seven new pictures every week; many landscape and macro-pictures. Sadly the sole contributor passed away, we’ll see if this project will go on.)

http://skuawk.com/
(professionally made pictures; sadly only a handful and I’ve seen some of them in slides on different workshops/conferences)

http://nos.twnsnd.co
(I just love the „New Old Stock“; the image above is from this source. You’ll find old pictures, mostly from people who are more then 75 years dead now. Hence, the pictures are oftentimes public domain.)

Iconsets

thenounproject.com
(THE source for icons and iconsets.)

https://github.com/google/material-design-icons/releases/tag/1.0.0
(a basic iconsiet by Google)

(I adapted this articles as of 2016-08-02 after claims from a very special readership)

Sound and Video

Additionally to static images or iconsets I sometimes also need videos or audio samples. This is in particular the case, if I hold introductory lectures or when I prepare for an e-lecture.

Sound (Audio and Samples)

ccmixter.org
(great library for music)

Creativecommons.org
(a linkset on its own for audio platforms)

www.hoerspielbox.de
(a nice library for ambient and samples)

CC@Soundcloud
(You’ll also find Creative Commons music (and some samples) on Soundcloud)

www.neosounds.com
(library for ‚free‘ music)

www.freesound.org
(library mainly for samples)

Video

allthefreestock.com
(already mentioned at images above, is also a good meta-search engine for video files)

the most obvious Youtube and Vimeo offer Creative Commons videos (e.g. for remixes)

CC@Vimeo

CC@Youtube
(search for anything you like and filter ‚creative commons‘)
Youtube Creative Commons Filter

pixabay
(offers not only images, but also videos CC0-licensed)

Pexels
(videos are offered under CC0-license)

Videezy
(many ‚free‘ videos, watch out for the usage-license on the download pages)

Videvo
(read the specific license, attributed on the download page of a video)

Do I miss any great sources, that you regularly use? Please mention them below.