The document discusses the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) which defines standard APIs for delivering images and metadata across different systems without proprietary software dependencies. IIIF includes the Image API for requesting images through URIs and the Presentation API for defining metadata and structure. The University of Toronto has adopted IIIF to make their digital collections more openly accessible and shareable worldwide through their Collections U of T repository and various viewers and tools they have developed that are integrated with IIIF.

1. Making Image Collections More Open with IIIF
What is IIIF?
A set of APIs to structure & deliver data across
repositories, image viewers, and other technologies
without imposing specific softwares. IIIF starts with
the implementation of the Image API, which specifies
a web service that returns an image to a standard
HTTP(S) request.
Essentially, the Image API defines a standard way of
creating URIs for your digital images and how they
can be requested. The URI above requests the
following image:
Image: De humani corporis fabrica libri septum from
the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of
Toronto, http://go.utlib.ca/cat/3759863. This image is
part of UTL’s Anatomia Digital Collection:
https://anatomia.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/ana
tomia:RBAI035.
The Image API allows you to
modify the image in various
ways, such as cropping the
image. The URI request above
can be updated to indicate a
desired pixel region.
For example: the URI
https://iiif.library.utoronto.ca/image/v2/anatomia:RBAI035_0001/900,3000,2000,1200/f
ull/0/default.jpg would return a selected region of the image
You can take IIIF a step further with the Presentation
API. It provides a standard layout for how IIIF objects
should be structured and presented, plus information
such as a table of contents, title, date, and rights
information. It results in something called a manifest.
The manifest is the overall description of the structure
and properties of the digital object formatted as a
JSON file.
U of T IIIF Tools
Benefits & Community
I
● 100 institutions worldwide, over 355 million IIIF images
● 7 interest/working groups you can join (iiif.io)
AAdvanced,
interactive functionality
for end users - such as
annotation and image
manipulation
possibilities
Compare image
objects from multiple
institutions
Publish once,
reuse often
Flexible access that is
platform agnostic /
no vendor lock-in
Thriving community
offering support and
collaboration
How does UTL use IIIF?
Since 2015, UTL has been incorporating IIIF with the
Collections U of T repository:
As a IIIF-enabled repository, Collections U of T images
are ready to be shared and used for collaboration
across the world. For example, manifest URLs can be
plugged into any IIIF viewer in any repository for
research, analysis and image comparison: a Book of
Hours manuscript from UTL can now be compared
alongside one from Stanford.
Mirador viewer
integration
Publication of Collections
U of T IIIF manifests
http://collections.library.utoronto.ca/
Collections U of T IIIF manifests are available at
https://iiif.library.utoronto.ca/presentation/v2/collections
Image: Left - a page view of a Walters Art Museum manuscript (IIIF manifest URL: https://purl.stanford.edu/qm670kv1873/iiif/manifest / Walters Art Museum,
W.582, fol 14r, © 2011 Walters Art Museum, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Right - a Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library manuscript (IIIF manifest URL:
https://iiif.library.utoronto.ca/presentation/v2/fisher2:137/manifest.json / The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, MSS 03024.
http://go.utlib.ca/cat/4719898.)
IIIFserver(Loris)
integration
Kelli Babcock
(kelli.babcock@utoronto.ca)
Rachel Di Cresce
(rachel.dicresce@utoronto.ca)
mage: Tom Cramer, Digitization and Preservation of Special Collections LIbraries, June 14,
2017 https://goo.gl/kCE5Gf
The U of T Digital Tools for Manuscript Studies team
have used IIIF to develop:
Omeka + Mirador viewer + IIIF
integration
Viscoll: Visualize the structure
of manuscripts and books
Visit https://digitaltoolsmss.library.utoronto.ca