The Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled today a long-awaited program that will make high-resolution digital images of works in its collection freely available to scholars. The new Images for Academic Publishing service will be available through ARTstor, a nonprofit image clearinghouse, and is designed “to assist scholars with teaching, study, and the publication of academic works,” the museum said in a statement.

Nearly 1,700 images from the Metropolitan’s collection will initially be available, through institutions that have ARTstor licenses. “Efforts to expand this accessibility are now under way and will be announced by ARTstor at a later date,” according to the statement.

The move comes at a time when scholars are facing ever-higher permissions costs as they try to publish research in art history and other image-dependent fields. The Metropolitan’s move is likely to carry special significance because of the institution’s pre-eminent place in the art world. It comes not long after Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum, which maintains one of the world’s largest collections of design and decorative arts, announced that it had a similar program in the works.