The New York Public Library has developed an image database to provide free and open online access to over 415,000 images from the Research Libraries, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

On first visit, discoveries included: reformer Thomas A. Larcom's portrait collection from Dublin's Mountjoy prison; photographs recording the westward progress of the American transcontinental railroad; photographs of Depression-era New York City by Lewis Hine and Berenice Abbott; "Drugstore Photographs, Or, A Trip Along the Yangtze River,1999" by Dylan Stone, 26,000 color snapshot photographs taken in 1999, recording the streetscape, block by block, of Manhattan south of Canal Street; Asia and the Pacific Rim in Early Prints and Photographs; and Metropolis: New York City Water and Transit Infrastructure.

Aiming to grow to half a million images and more, the NYPL Digital Gallery promises to be an exciting project to watch unfold.