ARTstor is a non-profit organization that builds and distributes the Digital Library, an online resource of 1.4 million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. The ARTstor Digital Library also includes a set of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and teaching purposes. There are currently more than 1,400+ ARTstor institutional subscribers in over 40 countries, including colleges and universities, museums, libraries, primary and secondary schools, and other non-profit organizations.

Since 2003, the organization has been an independent non-profit 501(C)(3) organization based in New York, and operates under the leadership of President James Shulman, in collaboration with Neil Rudenstine (Chairman) and the ARTstor Board of Trustees.

In the late 1990s, as universities and libraries began to convert their slide libraries into local digital image databases, ARTstor was created to address the growing need for a shared online image library that would be accessible to educational institutions worldwide. The ARTstor Digital Library is intended to reduce redundant efforts of scanning and cataloging thousands of the same images from multiple repositories, and also to enable new digital image collections to be shared for teaching and research. The initiative paired innovative digital image and online technologies with Mellon Foundation’s ongoing mission to support higher education, museums, the arts, and art conservation to “bring about a substantial transformation in art-related teaching, learning, and research.”