March 2010 saw the beginning of a new era in the history of The Open Clip Art Library, with the release of version 2.0. With key revisions to the way people use and interact with the art on the site, user registration and site contributions have grown exponentially!

The continued success of this project is vitally important to the open source community, so the Librarians are pleased to announce the release of Version 2.1 of The Open Clip Art Library! The press release notes some of the improvements included in this new iteration:

As of this 2.1 release, great new features are now a part of OCAL, including the ability to delete user-uploaded images (allowing for updates to existing work without duplicates), recovery options for lost or forgotten passwords, the ability to upload multiple files simultaneously, and support for additional archival formats!

The sudden surge in new visitors and registered users has ignited a flood of new content for The Open Clip Art library. April, alone, has seen the addition of over 3,000 images to the already robust collection of clip art graphics!

Of this new content, gradients continue their design dominance in vector imagery with rg1024′s inspired Red Barn Landscape (pictured above). Since it’s mid-March upload, the scene has garnered a stellar 180+ downloads!

A new OCAL member, Antoine, has pulled through with 33 initial uploads! Many involved series of clip arts that shared visual relationships, revealing a common practice as individual user contributions begin to increase by volumes.

Realistic clip art remains ever popular, as remi_inconnu demonstrates in this spectacular rendering of a wood-grained hourglass. Over 50 downloads last month can’t be wrong!

The librarians at The Open Clip Art Library would like to extend their gratitude to all of the artists and users of OCAL. If you would like to take version 2.1 for a test drive, please do so by registering a new user account and uploading content of your own!