How IIIF and ResourceSpace work together

29th July 2020

The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) was specifically created for the education and cultural sector. It's a community-driven image-based framework that enables global collaboration between institutions. In the context of the industry, images can refer to photos, drawings, objects, paintings, and manuscript or newspaper pages.

There are multiple benefits to the framework. For example, academics, curators, and researchers can access a wealth of information from any location. The technology strengthens academic co-operation and enhances the services that libraries, museums, and galleries deliver to patrons.

Share and migrate digital assets across systems

Essentially, the IIIF is a method for delivering digital assets, not storing them. Depending on your DAM provider, your Digital Asset Management (DAM) software can implement the IIIF API (Just like ResourceSpace's own core API, IIIF uses RESTful API construction, JSON-LD) and follows Web patterns that mean the data and migration process is straightforward.

Digital assets can be easily shared and migrated across systems. Users can access enhanced images and then annotate or view them close up. The IIIF API standard needs compatible software for viewing, comparing and manipulating images.

ResourceSpace and IIIF API

ResourceSpace is trusted by museums and galleries across the world and, naturally, we offer support for the IIIF API. Institutions can control which resources are published via IIIF - and the access levels provided can be configured in the IIIF interface using the permissions of a standard ResourceSpace user account. This means you only share what you want to via the IIIF API.

With the education and cultural sector swiftly adopting digital transformation, it's important to address the challenges and opportunities this provides.

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