The PLUS Coalition is an international non-profit initiative on a mission to enable access to and understanding of information about visual artworks for the benefit of the Coalition's members and the general public. Organized by respected artists, associations, leading companies, standards bodies, scholars and subject matter experts , the PLUS Coalition is operated by and for all communities involved in creating, distributing, using and preserving visual artworks.

Coming from more than one hundred countries, these diverse stakeholders have collaborated on the development of a global registry of visual works, and a system of standards that makes it easier to communicate, understand and manage the rights associated with visual works. The PLUS Coalition exists at the crossroads between the arts, technology, commerce, preservation and education.

In support of its mission, the work of the PLUS Coalition involves:

— Collecting information about visual artworks and visual artists and making that information more readily available and more accessible to the general public for educational, literary, research, business, and scientific purposes, for preservation of our cultural heritage and in order to enhance public knowledge and understanding of visual artists, visual artworks and visual art in general;

— Encouraging cooperation and collaboration by and between all professionals, industries and other communities engaged in creating, distributing, using and preserving visual artworks, and facilitating interoperable visual arts registries and other data systems to ensure that information about visual artworks and artists can be more easily communicated and shared for broader public access;

— Facilitating the advancement of education about the visual arts through making visual arts information more readily available to educational institutions, educators and students;

— Facilitating communication about, preservation of, and understanding of visual arts rights information in order to permit museums, libraries and educational institutions to broaden public access to, and understanding of, visual artworks and to ensure that the public has sufficient access to and understanding of information necessary to enable them to make informed decisions about using visual artworks.

For more information on the PLUS Registry, visit the PLUS Registry website at www.PLUS.org.