Using IIIF on ISOS and other repositories of digitised manuscripts

This month, I will give you a quick overview of how to view manuscript images online using the (now standard) International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF, pronounced ‘triple-i F’). Though the name may sound scary, there is really no reason to be afraid! For the more technologically enclined amongst you, I would recommend checking out the IIIF website to find out more about how it works, as well as any news and events happening. For everyone else, all you need to know is that IIIF enables you to view and interact with images on a web browser in more ways than a browser can allow on its own (e.g. deep zoom, comparison, colour changes etc). And on top of that, more and more universities and libraries now use it to display their digitised objects, so it’s extremely useful to know how to make the most of its functionalities.

There are two “technical” elements you should know about when using IIIF:

  • IIIF Manifest: this lists all the information that makes up a IIIF object (images; metadata e.g. title, description, copyright; structural information e.g. page order). The IIIF Manifest is therefore needed to import an object into an image viewer; you can normally get it as a URL. Again, more on this below.


How do I use the Mirador viewer? The example of ISOS.


For those of you who work on Medieval and Early Modern Irish, you will certainly have heard of Irish Script on Screen or ISOS, the largest digital repository of Irish manuscripts with over 450 manuscripts available to view (in most cases alongside their catalogue entry).

Irish Script on Screen website (ISOS)

ISOS had a makeover in 2022 and the brand-new website now uses IIIF, and a Mirador viewer which looks like this:

Mirador viewer on the ISOS website

Following the numbers on this image, you can click on:

  1. For more information about the object, including the copyright information (it normally lies with the institution), the IIIF Manifest link (URL), and an index of pages.

  2. To display the viewer full-screen.

  3. To change how the manuscript is displayed. You can display each page separately, or as an open book, or as a gallery of pictures (the scroll function does not work for me for some reason). There, you can also move the thumbnails (the smaller images of the pages at the bottom of the viewer) to the right of the viewer, or remove them entirely. If you remove them, you can still move to the next page by clicking on the arrows at the bottom of the viewer, and scroll through the index found at 1 (see above).

  4. These are the image tools, which allow you to rotate and flip the image, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, put it in greyscale and invert the colours. Of course, there is also a button to revert all the changes back to the original image. If you hover your mouse over each button, a little caption will pop up and indicate what they do! You will also need to click on each button again to make them go away, so you can look at the image properly.

  5. This button allows you to download the image you are currently viewing (one page of the manuscript). You have a choice between different resolutions in pixels; the higher it is, the better quality the image will be (but also the heavier the file!). The ISOS Mirador viewer also has an extremely useful functionality here; if you have zoomed in to a section of the page, you then have the option to download this ‘zoomed region’ specifically (rather than the entire image). Note that your download does not include any changes you have made to the image using the image tools (4 on the image). Note also that the image file will not be named after the manuscript or folio/page number, so if you’re downloading several pages and portions of pages, make sure to rename your files as you go!

  6. Finally, this button takes you to the full IIIF Manifest (in non-URL format), but if you right-click on it, you can also choose to ‘copy link’, which is the URL of the IIIF Manifest that you will need to add the object to another viewer. Indeed, what is even more amazing about this Mirador viewer is that you can add other manuscripts into the same viewer to compare them side by side. How can I do that, you ask?

  7. If you click on the green + icon (7 on the image), you are taken to the part of the viewer which lists all the resources (manuscripts) you have open. Here, you can click on ‘Add Resource’, at which point you are prompted to paste a URL. This is the URL you have obtained in 6 by right-clicking on the IIIF Manifest button, or in 1 in the information panel. Once you have pasted the URL and clicked on ‘Add’, the new manuscript will show up alongside the manuscript you already have opened. Click on this new manuscript, and now your viewer displays the two manuscripts side by side! You can then flick through both and compare them.

  8. At this point it is worth noting that by clicking on 8, you can change your ‘workspace type’ from ‘mosaic’ (the two manuscripts split the viewer into two halves) to ‘elastic’, where you can move the windows wherever you want in the viewer, and resize them by placing your mouse on a corner and clicking and dragging.  Important to note especially when you have more than one object open in your viewer: the commands number 1, 3, 5, 9 and 4 on the image above only control one object, so they will always stay with each object. That means that you can change the colours in one manuscript but not the other, remove the thumbnails at the bottom of one window but not the other, etc.

  9. If you click on 9, by the way, the manuscript window goes full-screen within the Mirador viewer, not on your own screen. That means that the left-hand-side panel with commands 7, 8 and 2 disappear and that gives you just a bit more space to see the manuscript. To see the manuscript(s) full-screen, you need to click on 2.


You can open as many manuscripts as you want into the same viewer. Just click on the X at the top right of each manuscript window when you are done with it, and click on the green + at the top left (7 on image) in order to add in other manuscripts.

I also forgot to say something obvious: you can zoom into the images either by scrolling on the image, by clicking on the area you would like to zoom on, or by clicking on the + and – signs at the bottom of the viewer.

So this is a very quick run-through of the basic functions of the Mirador viewer on ISOS. If you would like more help on how to change all of these settings, you can go to the ‘Help’ page on the ISOS website which includes videos on how to use the viewer, as well as help on how to search the ISOS website. 

Another couple of things about ISOS: there are usually catalogue entries below the manuscript viewer, and the folio/page numbers included in these will link you back to the viewer on that particular page. Very useful in the case of long catalogue entries!

And last but not least, if you want to cite the manuscripts on ISOS, note that each page of each manuscript now has a unique URL, so when you have a manuscript open on ISOS on a particular page, you can copy and paste this URL into your footnote or bibliography (alongside the manuscript and copyright information, of course), and this will lead your readers straight to the image you’re discussing! (e.g. fol. 53r of the Book of Lismore)


What about the Universal Viewer that other institutions use?


Institutions like the National Library of Wales and the National Library of Scotland use the Universal Viewer for their digitised manuscript collections. This has a more ‘view-only’ feel, but it is a bit more intuitive. You can scroll through the manuscript image thumbnails (left hand side), see the manuscript and copyright information in the right-hand-side panel, as well as change the display of the manuscript to an open book or a gallery (top right corner), just like on a Mirador viewer. As in Mirador, you can zoom into the images both by clicking with your mouse, or scrolling on the image. Depending on the Institution, you can also download the images, usually thanks to a ‘download’ icon at the bottom left corner of the viewer (e.g. it is not available for the National Library of Wales example here but is there in the National Library of Scotland example).


Unfortunately, Universal Viewer is a bit less malleable than Mirador, as you cannot usually change the colours of the images. However, if you have been seduced by the wonderful functionalities I have described above, do not despair! These manuscripts are still viewed using IIIF, so they can be opened in whatever viewer you like. Taking my example from the website of the National Library of Wales (image below), if you click on the ‘share’ icon (bottom left corner of the Universal Viewer), there will be a little ‘IIIF’ icon (circled in red on the image below) on which you can right-click, ‘copy link’, and then paste it into your Mirador viewer as I described above (e.g. on ISOS).



Universal Viewer on the National Library of Wales website

One last example I want to mention in passing is the viewer used by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. While it is neither Mirador nor Universal Viewer, it does allow you to open the manuscript in these viewers (see image below, top left corner). If you want to open one of their manuscripts in the ISOS Mirador viewer, just click on ‘View IIIF manifest’, copy the URL and paste it into your ISOS Mirador viewer as explained above. 

You can also download the images (bottom right), and the Bodleian actually allows you to download one image, a range of pages or the entire manuscript either as JPEG or as PDF. You just have to give them an email address and they send you a download link within a few hours.



IIIF viewer on the Bodleian Library website


So I think that is all for the *basic* yet extremely useful functionalities of IIIF viewers. I hope this little whirlwind tour has been of help to you, and that it will encourage you to engage with all the digitised manuscripts out there!



Nina Cnockaert-Guillou






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