Research
Making Art Accessible to Everyone
Describe It! is a Zooniverse project created by The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library. For this project, we are asking volunteers to write short descriptions for images of works of art in the Library's Photoarchive collection. Each of the descriptions and their text equivalents will be converted into source code called alt-text (or alternative text) that can be accessed by assistive technologies used by people with visual impairments.
The Photoarchive is a study collection of 1.2 million photographic reproductions of works of art from the fourth to the mid-twentieth century. More than 200,000 works of art represented in the collection have been digitized and are available online at Frick Digital Collections. By creating alternative text descriptions for the digital images the Library is able to make its collections accessible to all users.
Our Goals
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To collect descriptions for every image in the Library's digital Photoarchive.
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To convert the descriptions into alternative text that can be accessed by assistive technologies, making our collection materials accessible to all users.
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To provide volunteers with a greater understanding of the research collections available at the Frick Art Reference Library and the importance of art and accessibility.