“The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) has opened a whole new world of digital opportunities for Cultural Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds. Launched in time for Leeds to host the IIIF conference, this standard provides access to digitised manuscripts, artworks, archives, and more, in their full glory.”
Laura Beare, Audience Development Manager
The Cultural Collections and Galleries team at University of Leeds Libraries initiated a multi-year Digital Library Infrastructure Project to make their digital collections more accessible to staff, students and the general public.
The University of Leeds Libraries holds a fantastic range of cultural heritage collections, including manuscripts, artworks, archives and museum objects. The team felt, however, that the digital images on their existing online catalogue were not presenting these items in full quality or with optimum opportunity for research.
The team began to address this by adopting IIIF, an international standard for making images available online with a flourishing community of users. IIIF enabled them to host high quality, zoomable images on their own website, and allowed for greater user interaction.
Using a range of open-source tools, online visitors can now annotate content, compare and contrast images and even reunite scattered material, such as fragments of medieval manuscripts and cuneiform objects.
Users can also create their own digital exhibitions using images from the Leeds site, with the option of incorporating images from other institutions that use the same standard. This opens up many new possibilities for teaching and research.
Colleagues from the Library, the University’s Digital Education Service and Digital Creativities and Cultures Hub undertook a range of activities to promote the new possibilities that were now available.
In June 2025, the University hosted the prestigious annual international IIIF conference and simultaneously launched IIIF into their own online catalogue, bringing their images to the fore.
The team hosted an online exhibition, the first of many more to come using IIIF, showcasing the drawings of local artist Marie Hartley, allowing users to explore Yorkshire through a map interface.
With assistance from a student intern, they have also produced guides and demonstrations to introduce staff and students to the possibilities of IIIF within their virtual learning environment.
The library’s digital infrastructure has been refreshed, its collections are more accessible, and use of IIIF enabled images is taking off in research projects and teaching sessions, providing an improved experience for a wide range of users.