ABSTRACT
Prior to the inception of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), images would have to be processed into multiple derivative formats for use. Users would create derivatives in multiple resolutions, often thumbnails, low and high quality, etc. IIIF was created to remove this process by providing users with the ability for all these derivatives to be delivered via a standard. Today, IIIF provides standards for images, audio, and video.
IIIF began as a way to facilitate working with manuscripts to aid Digital Humanities (DH) research but has now grown to support many different types of collections held in libraries, museums, galleries, and archives. The IIIF standards focus on the presentation of digital resources, which provides the interoperability of data between systems. This interoperability means institutions have the flexibility to use the combination of tools that best support their materials. This has a benefit not only to the cultural heritage institutions leading to wider adoption, but also to academic research in that tools can be shared between projects to foster collaboration.
One of the core and popular uses of IIIF is to support comparison of images particularly between collections held in different institutions. IIIF-compatible viewers, such as Stanford University’s Mirador, can support the import of an IIIF item and allow for side-by-side comparison. This functionality is useful on its own, but when combined with Mirador’s annotation functionality, it provides a useful general-purpose DH tool.
This chapter will introduce the basics of IIIF and discuss various methods for implementing IIIF, but the main focus will be on using IIIF to aid research and the various tools available. A particular focus will be on annotation, with case studies presented to show the possibilities enabled by using annotations in combination with IIIF.
