Presentation type: Presentation
Abstract:In 2016, a group of Cuban institutions developed a project as a proof of concept, to show the opportunities to use the IIIF framework to share their digital collections in Internet. The initiative was promoted as a practical way to cooperate between ongoing national initiatives and to share the efforts to develop infrastructural and knowledge capabilities. Libraries and other cultural heritage institutions in Cuba have been developing digital libraries and other digital collections projects for years with national resources and international cooperation. Many document collections have been digitized and some initiatives have been sharing these assets on Internet. Some institutions expose their digital assets in foreign platforms, either international as Internet Archive or institutional as Digital Libraries of Universities for instance. However, as in many other countries and regions, the possibilities for use and reuse of this resources are limited by technical, organizational, economical and legal reasons. The limitations of infrastructure and the complexity to sustain open and interoperability platforms have been a challenge for scale up national projects and integrate those resources to the international ecology of cultural heritage resources. In that context, Havana University, Infomed – The National Health Network, The Cuban National Library José Martí and the Institute of Cuban History made a joint effort to implement a first IIIF platform that was hosted and serviced by Infomed. This was the first Cuban IIIF practical implementation and can be visited at http://iiif.sld.cu/ . The group responsible for the creation of this service in the form of a minimum viable product, contacted with the international IIIF community and begin to participate, learn and implement different open source products and to adapt that experience to the local needs. This group also begin to promote IIIF in the country, presented the framework to different communities and national projects related with Cuban cultural and historic heritage and to the health community. As a result of the initiative, several institutions and people are now connected with the framework in a practical way and new projects are emerging as one with the main telecommunication company in the country. The goal is to share a IIIF platform for several national initiatives and projects serving the needs of different libraries and digital collections in the country to lowering the friction cost to initiate new digital collections compatible with the IIIF framework and to offer a solid base to the international integration of Cuban digital resources globally and to promote national and international cooperation and interoperability.
Topics:
- Implementations of IIIF outside of North America/Europe
Keywords:
- IIIF,
- PLATFORMS,
- CUBA,
- INITIATIVES,
- COOPERATION,