The TFAO Free Online Digital Library

tfaoi.org / tfaoi.com

(above:  Albertus Del Orient Browere, The Lone Prospector, 1853, oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California.  Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

Overview

The TFAO Free Online Digital Library is a service of Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO), a nonprofit organization. The library is a highly specialized content repository available to the public without charge. It is mainly devoted to knowledge concerning American representational art.

The collection includes TFAO's publication Resource Library, which contains 1,300+ articles and essays written by hundreds of named authors, plus many thousands of other articles published by it. All published materials provide educational and informational content to students, scholars, teachers and others. Most published materials relate to exhibitions. Materials may include whole exhibition gallery guides, brochures or catalogues or texts from them, perviously published magazine or journal articles, wall panels and object labels, audio tour scripts, play scripts, interviews, blogs, checklists and news releases, plus related images. American art museums are the largest source of Resource Library's content.

The library's collection also includes catalogues, the National Calendar of Exhibitions, plus research reports and studies. TFAO owns portions of the contents and publishes other materials with the consent of other copyright holders.

TFAO performs functions for the library that are common with physical libraries including:

• selection, acquisition and receipt of content
• cataloging and classifying contents
• storage of contents
• maintaining its equipment, facility and systems
• deselection of contents

The library's operating model provides a case study for cost-efficient storage and distribution of knowledge and the operation of a digital library. Its low cost of operation provides a template for study by others considering developing digital libraries.

For a count of articles and essays written by hundreds of named authors published online in Resource Library, please click here. For an estimate of the quantity of text and images in the library, please see Content and paper-printed book equivalence.

How to find content on our site using search engines:

Conduct keyword searches within TFAO's website and Resource Library, a collection of articles and essays honoring the American experience through its art, using the advanced search feature of these search engines:

Google

Yahoo

Or, before entering keywords in a basic search, enter site:tfaoi.org.

Also see Indexes and information retrieval for more information.

Go to

• Acquisition and deselection of content
• Content retrieval
• Usage
• Web connectivity
• Durability and protection of content
• Open access
• eBooks and public libraries
• A vision of the future for digital libraries
• A vision of the future for TFAO

Return to Digital Libraries and Initiatives

Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

Clip art courtesy of ClipartPal and Vector.me.

*Tag for expired US copyright of object image:

Copyright 2022 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.