CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.- The Art Institute is now one of 15 museums participating in a sharing of digital image collections maintained by ARTstore, a database that provides broad-based access to art images and data for nonprofit educational and scholarly use in museums, colleges and universities, and the K–12 sector. Many of these museums have been participants in AMICO (Art Museum Image Consortium), the pioneering digital initiative originally created by the Association of Art Museum Directors. AMICO announced recently that it would cease operations in July 2005, and expressed its intention to work with ARTstor during a transition period.