Welcome to NYU's DSS Guide for IIIF! 📚
Here you'll find resources about what IIIF is, who could benefit from it, and how to start using IIIF. IIIF, or the International Image Interoperability Framework, is a way of displaying content on the web that allows for richer display, better integrated metadata, and easier moving between software.
This guide is intended to be a fully self-enclosed guide. While there will be links to other resources, the goal of this guide is to provide a simple, but thorough understanding of IIIF (without needing a million tabs open).
Coming Soon
🌄 Image Delivery
IIIF allows makes sharing and displaying large images faster and more accessible. With IIIF, image delivery is fast, with capabilities for image manipulation without changing the original file (size, scale, rotation, quality, and format).
🔗 Upload once, use anywhere
IIIF is the method, but not the goal! IIIF allows users to quickly take content from one software to another. With IIIF, you can crop, scale, and annotate an image without ever having to locally download an image file. IIIF allows users to upload a single copy of a file that can then be embedded and imported into any IIIF software through a link.
📦 Metadata that moves with you
With embedded metadata, content following IIIF protocols never loses its source, allowing users to quickly cite and follow the thread back to the creator or institution.
📝 Annotate and Contextualize
IIIF has built-in capability for the W3C Web Annotation model, which supports annotating content on the Web. Comment on, transcribe, and mark up resources using the Web’s inherent architecture–even for Audiovisual resources.
Additionally, IIIF supports pulling sources from multiple institutions to compare images, add context, or reconstruct manuscripts.
🌏 Join a Global Network
Many institutions, including the New York Public Library, Stanford University, MIT Libraries, and the Vatican Library have joined the IIIF consortium. View a full list here.