Southern University partners with Getty Images to preserve and license university's archival content
To further promote and protect the legacy of Southern University and A&M College, the University has entered into a new content licensing partnership with Getty Images, a preeminent global visual content creator and marketplace. This collaboration will allow Southern — which maintains full ownership of all content — to receive royalties for contemporary and archival images obtained through the proper licensing process via Getty Images’ global platform.
“Southern, for more than 140 years, has had a phenomenal story to tell,” said Dennis J. Shields, president-chancellor at Southern. “With this content partnership with Getty Images, we can now tell those stories to a wider, global audience through dynamic imagery. More people will be able to see our legacy, pride and tradition throughout the years.”
In addition to contemporary images such as campus scenery, commencement ceremonies, students, athletic events, and the “Human Jukebox” Marching Band, Southern’s archival collection will be available for licensing via gettyimages.com. Established in 1880, Southern’s archival collection includes the University’s founders and first students, campus queens, and cherished visitors such as Nelson Mandela delivering a commencement address.
Getty Images will support the digitization and metadata application for thousands of images from Southern's photo archives. This support is part of Getty Images’ HBCU Photo Archive Grants Program, which was initially funded by the Getty Family and Stand Together in 2021. This collaboration underlines Getty Images' dedication to advancing the cultural preservation of Southern University's impact and emphasizes its commitment to disseminating Southern’s present and historical narratives more broadly.
"Southern University has a rich history and legacy. It has been an honor to visit their photo archives in Baton Rouge and work with their administration to build a program that respectfully shares and celebrates their history and impact on the community.” said Cassandra Illidge, vice president of Global Partnerships and executive director of the HBCU Program at Getty Images. “Southern now joins other esteemed HBCUs currently working with Getty Images to protect their intellectual property, increase access to unique imagery, and raise awareness of rarely seen historical events.”
Getty Images’ HBCU program partner Denny’s Corporation, the American table service diner-style restaurant chain, will commit several stipends for students working on the photo digitization process at Southern’s photo archives.
Additionally, Getty Images’ program partner, Adnet Global, a renowned postproduction agency that specializes in the digitization, restoration, and discoverability of visual analog historic libraries in the photo digitization process, will work closely with Southern to ensure pristine digital replicas are enriched with meticulously applied metadata to ensure the content is searchable.
Discover and explore Southern’s archival content on gettyimages.com, here.
To learn more about the Getty Images HBCU Photo Archive Grants Program, go to:
https://www.gettyimages.com/corporate-responsibility/hbcu-partnership.
About Getty Images
Getty Images (NYSE: GETY) is a preeminent global visual content creator and marketplace that offers a full range of content solutions to meet the needs of any customer around the globe, no matter their size. Through its Getty Images, iStock and Unsplash brands, websites and APIs, Getty Images serves customers in almost every country in the world and is the first-place people turn to discover, purchase and share powerful visual content from the world’s best photographers and videographers. Getty Images works with over 564,000 content creators and more than 320 content partners to deliver this powerful and comprehensive content. Each year Getty Images covers more than 160,000 news, sport and entertainment events providing depth and breadth of coverage that is unmatched. Getty Images maintains one of the largest and best privately-owned photographic archives in the world with millions of images dating back to the beginning of photography.
Through its best-in-class creative library and Custom Content solutions, Getty Images helps customers elevate their creativity and entire end‑to‑end creative process to find the right visual for any need. With the adoption and distribution of generative AI technologies and tools trained on permissioned content that include indemnification and perpetual, worldwide usage rights, Getty Images and iStock customers can use text to image generation to ideate and create commercially safe compelling visuals, further expanding Getty Images capabilities to deliver exactly what customers are looking for.
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