Reimagining Collections: IIIF for Repatriation, Reparative Cataloging, and Reconciliation

Rare Books and Manuscripts Section 2025

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Caterina Agostini, Ph.D.

2025 RBMS schedule

What is the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)?

IIIF (triple-eye-effe) is an acronym that represents several ideas:

A model for presenting and annotating content such as images and also audiovisual files
A global community that develops open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), implements them in software, and exposes interoperable content
A set of open standards for delivering high-quality, attributed digital objects online at scale. It is also an international community developing and implementing the IIIF APIs. IIIF has been built and supported by the IIIF consortium, whose members are leading institutions working with cultural heritage.

Resources and documentation are available for researchers, technical experts and implementers, and Deans and University Librarians. Feel free to borrow and reuse, and to contribute as well –those are all living documents.

Giving high-quality access to images hosted around the world
Defining a set of common application programming interfaces that support interoperability between image repositories