Named after the small red sticker that once guided scholars through legacy 35mm slides, The Red Dot is here to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of visual and material research. While rooted in the University of California, Santa Barbara community, our posts are open to all.
At MIRL, we engage with art history, digital humanities, and material culture through hands-on research and archival projects. Guided by our core principles—critical engagement with visual and material culture, ethical stewardship of images and data, and innovative approaches to research and pedagogy—we work at the intersection of technology and the humanities. We are especially interested in how digital tools can expand the study of images, objects, and spaces.
Here, we’ll share insights on Digital Art History and Architectural History, highlight new image and data resources, discuss copyright and ethical considerations, and spotlight events that shape our field.
The Red Dot © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
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Digital Public Library of America: A wealth of info, no card required
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an all-digital library that aggregates metadata — or information describing an item — and thumbnails for millions (over 11,000,000 and growing!) of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. DPLA brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums,… Read more
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Digital archive of vernacular art sites
SPACES (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments) recently launched a digital archive of more than 1,400 vernacular and self-taught art environments around the world and continue to expand their holdings by soliciting new documentation and writing about the sites, and sharing resources and updates on the preservation and conservation of threatened vernacular art sites.… Read more
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So Cal Free Museum Day: January 30, 2016
Over two dozen Southern California museums will offer free admission on Saturday, January 30. This free-for-all includes The Broad, LACMA, MoCA, and — luckily for those of us in the Santa Barbara area — the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. If that Saturday won’t work, here’s a list of the free days many LA museums… Read more
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NY Public Library offers 180,000 public domain images
The New York Public Library announced it now offers 180,000 images in their NYPL Digital Collections of library materials in the public domain. These images can be downloaded in the highest resolution available and “everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways.” In fact, it’s encouraged. via ARTnews Read more
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Art auction quiz
The New York Times has a quiz today, “Are You Smarter than a Billionaire?” which asks you to guess which item, in a pair from this week’s auction sales, got the highest price. There are some surprises. To help get you in the right frame of price reference: the Modigliani below fetched $170 million. Read more
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10,000 architectural views, plans and drawings added to Artstor
Artstor just announced the unveiling of a valuable new addition to their collection: 10,000 architectural photos, plans, sections, and other drawings. And this is just phase I – the collection will be doubling in size. This new content comes via a collaboration with the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and the Avery… Read more