Investigation of IIIF in Digital Editions
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The project “Exploring IIIF in Digital Scholarly Editions: Evaluation and Practical Application” focuses on analyzing and further developing the use of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) in digital scholarly editions. IIIF is an international standard for providing and annotating image data via interfaces (APIs) and offers extensive functionality for the display, exchange, and reuse of image materials. While IIIF is already used in many editions – for example, to display facsimiles – many of its technical possibilities remain untapped. The project addresses this gap between existing technical implementations and the specific requirements of edition projects, thereby contributing to the optimization of workflows in the Digital Humanities.
Project Information
In collaboration between the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies - IHB) and the Institute for Digital Humanities at the University of Graz , the project systematically collects requirements for IIIF implementations and compares them with existing technical solutions.
The focus is on examining the two widely used IIIF viewers Mirador and OpenSeadragon and their suitability for rendering according to the IIIF 3.0 standard. In addition to a technical analysis, best practices and concrete recommendations will be developed and documented in a publicly accessible How-To Guide.
A key milestone was the two-day workshop “IIIF in/and Digital Scholarly Editions” (May 2025), attended by 33 participants from Austria and other European countries. Presentations, including one by Glen Robson (IIIF Consortium), provided insights into current developments and use cases. In addition, a survey covering approximately 170 projects was conducted to assess the state of IIIF usage, which will soon be made available as an open resource. The resulting dataset and workshop materials will be published on Zenodo , serving as a foundation for sustained networking and knowledge exchange within the community.