The photographs kept in the Department of Asian Art  are used for documentation, reference, and research on individual objects in the collection, and are part of the object files held by the Department. There are about 3,000 photographs of objects with comparanda; most are black-and-white prints in notebooks and curatorial files. There is a small collection of color slides and digital files on CD-ROM. There are also installation shots of previous exhibitions that may not be preserved in other repositories.