99% of the maps in Chronoscope World use iiif already.
Learn how to browse and import more maps, more atlases
or even entire iiif books.

What is IIIF?

iiif – triple aye eff – is the International Image Interoperability Framework. It is an open standard to deliver high resolution images for deep zooming from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM).

A iiif manifest contains information how to access a digitized page or an entire book at a iiif provider’s web site. It also delivers metadata on the iiif book.

– More info at iiif community home

Dedicated web tools are needed to open iiif manifests – much like Adobe Reader or the Preview app on Macintosh which both display pdf documents.
Mirador and Universal Viewer are most common. But Chronoscope World is capable to open iiif manifests as well.

Import IIIF Manifest Links

Many libraries and archives offer their collections also as iiif. Usually a link to a iiif manifest is provided on the item page.

Copy’n’Paste or Drag’n’Drop a manifest link to Chronoscope World to open the iiif page or the entire book.

On success, a table of thumbnails gives an overview of the book’s content.

Exercise

1. Open Justus Danckerts’ Atlas from 1715 at e-rara by ETH Zurich
2. Find and copy the manifest link from the lower section of the page.
3. Import the link into Chronoscope World.

Learn how to import geoLinks into Chronoscope World because iiif manifests are basically formatted text files on a iiif provider’s web server. The web address is needed to open the manifest which can contain a single image or an entire atlas or book.

Justus Danckerts’ Atlas is displayed on the table of maps.
Skip the exercise and directly open this view

Chronoscope World displays maps from more than 66 libraries, archives and museums at their correct location. But you can import any iiif manifest from any iiif provider and browse the pages.

Imported books remain available until the browser window is closed or reloaded.

However, sharing a ChronoLink to an imported iiif book is possible as the link contains a parameter for the original iiif manifest.

Mind, that external maps do not display at their correct location. Instead all imported pages are displayed south of Ghans at 0° latitude - 0° longitude.

Currently, iiif manifest presentaion API version 2.x ia supported. IIIF version 3 is on the way.

Smart Drag’n’Drop of IIIF books

Some libraries offer a more convenient way to import iiif books. Simply drag a thumbnail from a search results page onto a Chronoscope’s browser window!

See Smart Drag’n’Drop in action

Exercise

Explore the Ibero-American Institute

1) Drag a thumbnail from IAI’s Cinegraf collection…

2) …and drop the thumbnail to Chronoscope World to open the iiif book:

Use arrow keys space shift-space PageUp PageDown etc. to navigate the table of pages.
Press return to open a page

3) Open any page and flip though the book:

Use PageUp PageDown Q W or double or trippe key strokes to flip through the pages. Use A to reopen the table of pages.
Skip the exercise and directly open this view

Supported GLAMs

Galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) that support smart drag’n’drop for Chronoscope World:

• Internet Archive
  –free books only–
• Museum Digital
• University of St. Andrews
• Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts at Johns Hopkins U, Baltimore, Maryland
• Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin
• Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin zlb
• GEI Digital Braunschweig zlb
• Brown University
• MMMONK, Brugge
• The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
• Trinity College, Cambridge
• SMK Copenhagen
• Athenaeumbibliotheek, Deventer
• Doshisha University Library
• UCD Dublin
• The Royal Irish Academy / Digital Repository of Ireland
• Universitätsbibliothek Düsseldorf
• Fuldaer Digitale Sammlungen
• Folger Shakespeare Library
• Göttingen State and University Library
• Harvard Art Collection
• Universität Kassel
• University of Leicester - Special Collections Online
• Wellcome Collection, London
• Fragmentarium, University of Fribourg
• The Huntington- Library,Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens :: Digital Libray
• Massachusetts Collection Online - Digital Commonwealth
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Digitale Bibliothek
• UWMilwaukee, Wisconsin
• Münchner Digitalisierungszentrum - Digitale Bibliothek
• ULB Münster
• Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg
• Bodelain Libraries (Oxford) - video example
• Princeton University Art Museum
• Íslandskort.is, Reykjavík
• ryukoku
• Libraries of the University of Toronto
• Villanova University
• Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar
• Universitätsbibliothek Wien
• manuscripta.at Wien
• Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
• Williams College Museum of Art
• National Gallery of Arts, Washington D.C.
• Yale Center for British Art
• Yale University Library
• e-rara by ETH Zürich
• e-codices
• e-manuscripta of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Power user tip:
It is possible to drag one iiif book after another onto the Chronoscope. The table of maps does not even have to be closed. That makes it possible to siff though dozens of books with thousands of pages quite efficiently.
This is useful if you do not know quite for sure what you are looking for. Just open a book with a drag gesture and have a glance at the thumbnails.

Browser Extension DetektIIIF

detektIIIF2 is a browser plugin for Firefox, Chrome and Brave that automatically detects IIIF‑compliant resources and thus facilitates the collection of digital iiif manifests.

detektIIIF browser extension has found two iiif manifests.

More Info

• Download and install detektIIIF

After installation, configure detektIIIF to use Chronoscope World as a IIIF Viewer.

Enter this URL at detektIIIF’s Options panel:

https://mprove.de/chrono?z=5&=1&=1&iiif-content=%%%URI%%%

detektIIIF Options

Cover image by Philippe Mercier CC0 Yale Center for British Art collections

• Guide
  • Intro
  • Filter
  • Import
  • IIIF Books
  • Release Notes
  • Donate
    
    
  • Hinweise für Zeitreisende
  • Filtern nach Karten
  • Importieren
  • IIIF-Bücher
  • Spenden

About Chronoscope World

Chronoscope World is the core module of the Chrono Research Lab.

You can support Chronoscope Hamburg and Chronoscope World by sharing ChronoLinks relentlesly. Historical insights have been shared on twitter at chronohh. But meanwhile the band plays on on Mastodon at Chrono Matthias

The Chrono Research Lab is an independant and free time-traveling service by Matthias Müller-Prove. However, some expenses are not really  covered. Luckily, the human society has invented real money to to by me a virtual coffee:

Tip me on PayPal

Social Channels

• chronoHH@norden.social
• Chrono Research Lab
• Chronoscope Hamburg
• ChronoHH
  
  

But now: Please fasten your seat belts. Let’s travel through space and time with Chronoscope World: