“prometheus – The Distributed Digital Image Archive for Research and Studies” started on April 1, 2001 as a cooperative project in Germany. Within the frame work of New Media in Education, prometheus was supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (bmb+f) with a total amount of 1.8 Mio. €. The project’s executing organization “New Media in Education” was associated with the German Institute for Aerospace industry (DLR).