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Sources

Where does the content on Openverse come from?

There is openly licensed content hosted on millions of domains across the breadth of the internet. Our team systematically identifies providers hosting CC-licensed content. If it’s a good fit, we index that content and make it discoverable through Openverse.

Some providers have multiple different groupings of content within them. Flickr has sources ranging from NASA to personal photography. The Smithsonian Institute comprises a dozen diverse collections. Wikimedia Commons runs the gamut in terms of content, and is used by several galleries, libraries, archives, and museums highlighting some or all of their digitized collections.

Openverse is especially grateful for the work of Europeana, an organization that works to digitize and make discoverable cultural heritage works across Europe. Openverse is able to index hundreds of valuable sources through a single integration with the Europeana API .

How do we decide what sources to add next?

We have a never ending list of possible sources to research prior to integration. We ask ourselves questions like:

  • What is the impact or importance of this source to our users? If it exists within a provider like Wikimedia Commons, is it valuable for our users to be able to filter by this source directly?
  • Is licensing and attribution information clearly displayed to enable confident reuse?
  • How many new total items or new types of items can we bring to our users through this integration? Some sources are direct integrations, while others may be a source within a source.

We appreciate suggestions for new sources from our community of users.

Suggest a new source

Clicking on a Source allows you to browse and filter items within that source.

Image Sources

Source
Domain
Total items
Animal Diversity Webanimaldiversity.org15,554
Biodiversity Heritage Librarybiodiversitylibrary.org247,705
Brooklyn Museumbrooklynmuseum.org71,582
Cleveland Museum of Artclevelandart.org40,915
Digitalt Museumdigitaltmuseum.no289,769
Europeanaeuropeana.eu11,378,974
Finnish Heritage Agencymuseovirasto.fi285,190
Finnish Satakunnan Museumsatakunnanmuseo.pori.fi16,377
Flickrflickr.com519,088,953
Geograph Britain and Irelandgeograph.org.uk1,090,119
Gulbenkian Art Librarygulbenkian.pt6,697
iNaturalistinaturalist.org266,268,617
Just take it freejusttakeitfree.com221
Metropolitan Museum of Artmetmuseum.org426,502
Museums Victoriamuseumsvictoria.com.au173,720
Nappynappy.co2,211
NASAnasa.gov128,730
National Gallery of Denmark (SMK)open.smk.dk40,472
National Museum of Finlandkansallismuseo.fi421
New York Public Librarydigitalcollections.nypl.org1,281
PhyloPicphylopic.org9,835
Rawpixelrawpixel.com706,177
Rijksmuseumrijksmuseum.nl29,999
Science Museum – UKsciencemuseum.org.uk99,584
Sketchfabsketchfab.com37,872
Smithsonian Institution Archivessiarchives.si.edu8,313
Smithsonian Institution: Anacostia Community Museumanacostia.si.edu655
Smithsonian Institution: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museumcooperhewitt.org76,916
Smithsonian Institution: Freer Gallery of Artasia.si.edu8,009
Smithsonian Institution: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardenhirshhorn.si.edu894
Smithsonian Institution: National Air and Space Museumairandspace.si.edu6,968
Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of African American History and Culturenmaahc.si.edu13,221
Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of African Artafrica.si.edu365
Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of American Historyamericanhistory.si.edu14,794
Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of Natural Historynaturalhistory.si.edu4,331,314
Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of the American Indianamericanindian.si.edu245
Smithsonian Institution: National Portrait Gallerynpg.si.edu17,258
Smithsonian Institution: National Postal Museumpostalmuseum.si.edu10,376
Smithsonian Institution: National Zoonationalzoo.si.edu462
Smithsonian Institution: Smithsonian American Art Museumamericanart.si.edu12,716
Smithsonian Institution: Smithsonian Gardensgardens.si.edu12,986
Smithsonian Institution: Smithsonian Librarieslibrary.si.edu55
SpaceXspacex.com1,360
StockSnap.iostocksnap.io39,365
SVG Silhsvgsilh.com358,942
Thingiversethingiverse.com32,395
Wellcome Collectionwellcomecollection.org92,478
Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org71,142,647
WOCinTech Chatwocintechchat.com268
World Register of Marine Speciesmarinespecies.org19,783
WP Photo Directorywordpress.org18,662

Audio Sources

Source
Domain
Total items
Freesoundfreesound.org571,208
Jamendojamendo.com611,846
Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org2,804,436

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