2025 IIIF Annual Conference Schedule

This workshop proposes a full introduction to Arvest (https://arvest.app): an open source and free to use web app for researchers, teachers, students, artists and GLAM sector professionals who wish to work with multimodal corpora. Arvest is built entirely around IIIF, and allows anyone with an email address to immediately start engaging with and creating IIIF content. Make the most of a powerful set of features, from secure media and data hosting; to multimodal projects which can be shared and/or worked on collaboratively; to various types of annotations from simple text, to visual overlays, to time-based annotations; to a powerful API which allows you to integrate Arvest into complex computational workflows.

This interactive tutorial workshop presents an overview of ARK (Archival Resource Key) persistent identifiers, their cross-domain metadata, and unique compatibility with IIIF applications. As non-paywalled PIDs (persistent identifiers, permalinks) for information objects of any kind, ARKs support durable web addresses (e.g., that don’t return 404 Page Not Found). Persistent links are especially important for protecting our investment in the linked data. Since 2001, 8.2 billion ARKs have been created by over 1450 organizations — libraries, data centers, archives, museums, publishers, government agencies, and vendors. With highly flexible metadata, citation-friendly ARKs identify anything digital, physical, or abstract. Important use cases include ARKs for physical samples and for millions of items in national libraries and museums of fine art and natural history. The tutorial includes hands-on experience and is for anyone interested in PIDs supporting images and cross-domain heritage data.

As IIIF continues to grow in importance and impact, great potentials for developments and applications of 3D media are explored in the 3D Community Group (CG) and 3D Technical Specification Group (TSG). The 3D TSG have advanced draft standards for 3D content, to complement and expand the potential of all IIIF-based collections. In this session we show you updated draft documents and release candidate, for review, input, and further testing with collection holders.

Complementing this, the 3D CG has examples of projects, tools and contacts with other 3D researchers and developer communities to collaboratively consider challenges and solutions in common. The IIIF 3D groups work together with specialists and representatives across user communities, international and standards bodies. Combined efforts are extending IIIF suitably and sustainably into the 3rd dimension, expanding options to overcome barriers for sustainable sharing across institutions and collections.

The TSG is evolving options for incorporation of 2D and A/V with 3D data, including for digital dioramas, scene construction considerations, and for a more inclusive and sustainable metaverse. This session will provide an update on the work and progress, use cases, demos and take-home examples, and technical specification for IIIF 3D and Presentation API 4.0. Please join us!

IIIF provides limited support for modelling books with moving parts (such as those with fold-outs and flaps). But could this support be extended to enable modelling of books with far more complex arrangements of moving (or sliding, rotating, popping, etc) parts? This Birds of a Feather session would be for those institutions and researchers with an interest in extending IIIF to help bring to life online books such as anatomical flap books, in which movable paper flaps are lifted to reveal the layers below, or books and manuscripts using other paper mechanisms such as folds, flaps, volvelles, pop-ups, etc.

We would like to review examples of works held in each institutions collections (please bring links to any examples you would like to share), we'll then discuss the viewing experience that scholars and users would desire for such items and the current limitations in the IIIF Presentation API for modelling these works. We can then consider what might be possible for IIIF to handle with the development of extensions to the current APIs. If there is enough interest, we would then propose a Community Group to continue the discussion of this topic.

This workshop will train attendees to create and manage immersive online exhibitions on the anaver.se web app through IIIF providers. No prior knowledge or skill is required.

Following Bibliothèque nationale de France’s (BnF) digital library Gallica upgrade to the IIIF v3.0 APIs, the web app anaver.se has been made to support IIIF image resources. Its purpose is to allow both online communities to make free use of the public domain online heritage and to enable institutions to promote their online collections through professional curation. Further improvements have widened its potential for interoperability, including with institutions such as the Library of Congress or the Victoria and Albert Museum IIIF endpoints. Users can hence mix different IIIF providers in a same space.

At the end of the workshop, we expect attendees to be able to:
- Navigate the anaver.se (within a space and among spaces)
- Load and crop a IIIF asset within the anaver.se
- Place, edit, and annotate a IIIF asset in a space
- Create an exhibition with several IIIF assets in a space
- Export an exhibition (also called a gallery) as a JSON file
- Import an existing exhibition
- Manage a reserved space through the event manager dashboard

The combination of Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) holds great promise for how GLAM institutions can provide access to its digitised collections. By combining large-scale digitisation with ML-based text recognition, institutions can create searchable, interoperable records that greatly enhance discoverability and user engagement.

In this Birds of a Feather session, participants will explore practical examples of implementing HTR within a IIIF ecosystem. Topics will include data preparation, model training, and methods for integrating transcriptions into IIIF viewers, supported by user feedback. Projects presented will include the Swedish National Archives’ solution for making HTR-transcribed historical manuscripts searchable through IIIF, the Swiss Federal Archives' HTR-enabled workflow for handwritten Federal Council minutes (1848-1903) that incorporates the IIIF Content Search API, and The National Archives' (UK) approach to processing wills (PROB 11), known for their relatively uniform handwriting style.

Open to archivists, technologists and anyone interested in building more accessible cultural heritage collections, this session will promote shared learning, best practice and opportunities for collaboration within the IIIF community. Whether you are new to HTR or refining existing approaches, join us to explore new strategies, address common challenges, and help shape the future of archival access.

Over the 10 years since its inception, IIIF has reached ever larger audiences, not just because of the global content or the sophisticated tools developed in its wake. It has also made research increasingly accessible to students. A new set of educational priorities has emerged in the IIIF sphere for pedagogies, foundational proficiencies, user-friendly technology, and faculty recruitment. This summer, in addition to hosting the IIIF Annual Conference, the University of Leeds is also launching our own IIIF collections, and embarking on a university-wide implementation effort. We are keen to encourage take-up of IIIF, but we know that for many involved in teaching and learning new technologies and practices can feel like a hurdle. In this session, the IIIF Education Community Group and representatives from the University of Leeds will share examples of IIIF-based learning materials, and facilitate discussion about holistic institutional implementation strategies. The session will be of interest to scholar-educators, and to those who provide educational support, such as Learning Technologists. Viewpoints from those with prior experience and those completely new to IIIF will be welcomed.

Led by IIIF Editors

Join the IIIF Editors for an overview of IIIF API Presentation 4.0. The group will solicit feedback from community members for inclusion in the the final published specification.