Consider the intended purpose, audience, and context(s) for the image use. Is the visual need for central support, illustrative, or meant to critique? What or who is the target audience? Is the desired reach and audience narrow or broad? What is the intended setting or medium of delivery?

Defining a Visual Media Need: Determine Your Intent and Purpose

Consider your specific image criteria.  Do you require a particular resolution, size, color, subject, object, or medium?

Defining a Visual Media Need: Define Your Criteria

Articulate key words, ideas, and descriptions for your image need.

Defining a Visual Media Need: Devise Essential Terms

Examine existing practices for context appropriate image use, such as a particular field of study or industry, and consider how that may affect your visual media needs.

Defining a Visual Media Need: Examine Relevant Use Practices

Explore and determine suitability of a variety of sources and the formats they offer.  Are certain publications, databases, museum repositories, or web resources more fitting for your purposes?

Defining a Visual Media Need: Examine Sources

Explore and determine suitability of visual material types. Are paintings, prints, photos, graphs, born-digital media, or perhaps animation useful to your intent and purpose?

Defining a Visual Media Need: Examine a Variety of Visual Works

Consider and examine the variety of ways visual media can convey information, such as maps, models, and graphs.  Consider how visual media can be altered or combined to communicate something new.

Defining a Visual Media Need: Explore Visual Communication and Adaptation

- Determine your intent and purpose
- Define your criteria
- Devise essential terms
- Examine relevant use practices
- Examine sources
- Examine a variety of visual works
- Explore visual communication and adaptation



University of Colorado at Boulder

Visual literacy encompasses the knowledge and skills required to locate, understand, assess, use, and construct visual media.  Visual literacy skills include analyzing aspects of a visual work’s context, culture, ethics, aesthetics, ideas, concepts, expression, and technical properties.

Visual Literacy

"ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education", American Library Association, October 27, 2011. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy (Accessed July 13, 2021).

ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

1.Evaluate the type and scope of the visual media need

2.Effectively locate and obtain visual materials

3.Evaluate and construe meaning from visual materials

4.Assess visual materials and visual media sources

5.Use visual materials competently and with purpose

6.Compose visual materials that are useful, purposeful, and communicate meaning effectively

7.Understand the contexts and issues surrounding the use and creation of visual media, and behave ethically in the use and procurement of visual materials


ACRL Visual Literacy Standards

- Look within and without a discipline
- Adapt to copyright and use conditions
- Form a search strategy
- Integrate new terms and adapt search
- Explore related images
- Join visual and topical research process
- Assess your collection and adapt
- Use tools and methods necessary to acquire and use visual media
- Organize collected visual media


How to Find and Access Visual Media

- Review associated image information
- Explore the contexts of an image
- Examine the various components of the visual media
- Corroborate your analysis


How to Interpret Meaning of Visual Media

- Determine if visual media effectively communicates
- Appraise the design, technical, and quality characteristics
- Assess any associated textual material
- Determine if visual media sources are reputable

How to Evaluate Visual Media and Sources

- Appropriately select visual media for various goals and contexts
- Employ visual media technology successfully
- Creatively integrate visual media in academic work
- Successfully communicate through use of visual media and in discussion of visual media

How to Use Visual Media Successfully

- Create visual media for a variety of contexts
- Implement design strategies and exercise creativity
- Utilize various visual media production technologies
- Assess your visual media creations

How to Create Effective Visual Media

- Explore and consider the variety of social, ethical, legal, and economic issues that encompass visual media creation, ownership, sharing, use, alteration, attribution, etc. 
- Be aware of and adhere to acceptable conventions (ethical or legal) for interacting with and using visual media
- Properly cite and attribute when using visual media in any shared setting or communicative manner

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