464 Free Art Books (and Other Free Books)

Looking for free materials for the classes you teach? You'll be pleased to know that you can download hundreds of books on Art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It seems logical that the museum would host such a collection. What may surprise you is the diversity of this collection of "Art" books.

The content available is varied, covering art from many parts of the world, and in mediums as diverse as painting and furniture design. Want to know about the forms in Fencing? There's a book here for you. Interested in the design of early 20th century American sportswear? There's a book here for you. Need a resource on the design of antique musical instruments? There's a book here for you. Need a resource on "Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy", "Andean Four-Cornered Hats", or "European Horse Armor"? You can find it in this collection, and either read it online or download it, all for free! The collection's diversity makes it almost as interesting to browse the titles as to read the books.

You can visit and browse the collection of free books, by following this link:

Met Publications: Books With Full Text Online.

A Virtual Art Library

Continuing a the theme of free online learning resources, Getty has made available over 250 art books in a new virtual library, with a promise of more to come.

Here's what James Cuno, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, writes about it in The Getty Iris:

When we launched the Open Content Program last summer and released 4,600 collection images to the public (a number that has since more than doubled), I cited this quote from the most recent museum edition of the NMC Horizon Report: “it is now the mark—and social responsibility—of world-class institutions to develop and share free cultural and educational resources.” This dictum continues to inform our efforts here at the Getty, and today I am very pleased to share with you our latest project in this arena, the Virtual Library: An open, online repository of more than 250 Getty publications from our 45-year publishing history, available as high-quality scans to read online, or to download in their entirety, for free.

Explore it here: http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/