Including images in your guides enhances the presentation of textual content. As is possible, include images that already exist on the Library's website -- primarily those available from the digital collections (https://www.loc.gov/collections/).
The sizing and alignment of images is controlled by the Library of Congress LibGuides template and style sheet. It is important to make sure that height, width, and other formatting settings are not specifically included in order to assure responsive display on all devices, including small mobile platforms.
Special Note: When including images from the Library’s digital collections, you must link to the image from the Library’s storage (do not upload the image into the LibGuides storage), and link to the Project One (P1) “item” page for the metadata and digital object (for example: https://www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/)
About the Image on Right: This image is an example of a "right-aligned image with a caption." This is the most common style of image found in Library of Congress LibGuides.
The best way to acquire an image is to locate it somewhere on the Library's website, starting with Project One (P1) digital collections. There are several important pieces of information that you will need in order to include the image in your LibGuide:
Captions are visible labels following an image. Captions are used for contextual information like date, creator, location, attribution, or links back to an image’s source. Alt text communicates content and context found within an image.
When including captions with images, please follow the format shown below. This format is unique to LibGuides at the Library and seeks to provide the simplest information about the image and its curatorial location.
Creator. Title. Date. Collection Name {optional}. Division Name.
Many images included in the Library's digital collections may only be viewed when a researcher is onsite at the Library of Congress. You will be able to identify one of these images while viewing the "item" webpage for the image (see screenshot below for https://www.loc.gov/item/2004673421/) which includes the message, Full online access to this resource is only available at the Library of Congress.
In general, it is better to avoid using rights-restricted images that are not directly related to the topic of the guide you are creating. If you decide to use a right-restricted image in your LibGuide, you must:
The following pages in published guides show the use of rights-restricted images:
There are times when you may wish to include images from external websites in your LibGuides. If you want to include an image from an external source, you will need to contact Hope O'Keefe (Office of the General Counsel) and ask for permission to include the image. In your request, please include the link to the image and any information about the image to aid her in her evaluation of your request.
If permission is obtained, please add a hidden box in your guide including the date and approval text for the inclusion of that image. For an example of this, see the Kendrick Lamar Libguide:
You will also need to create a copy of the image and save it in the Library's web space, but the image can (and should) be sized like the medium-or larger-sized images in P1.
Per Hope O'Keeffe: Images from Flickr Commons and/or specifically covered under the Creative Commons license may be used following these steps:
Examples include:
If you want to include a photograph that you or a colleague has taken of places or things at the Library, or a cropped image from a digital item (frequent in historic newspapers), you can use that image in a LibGuide. It is generally preferred to link to the native image in the Library's digital collections, but there are often good reasons to include your own images, or cropped images from a digital object..
You will also need to create a copy of the image and save it in the Library's web space, but the image can (and should) be sized like the medium-or larger-sized images in P1 (1024px wide usually works well).
Examples include:
