Boise State University

04/23/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/23/2026 10:03

New resource available to support teaching and scholarly activity

Screenshot of a sample analytical exhibit created by Professor Olsen-Smith for ENGLIT 497: Special Topics, Digital Approaches to Literature

Professor of English Literature Steven Olsen-Smith and Senior Software Engineer Kyle Shannon of the Office of Research Computing are pleased to announce the launch of a new campus resource to support teaching and scholarly activity: a local image server built according to International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standards.

This platform enables faculty and students to upload and curate high-resolution images for use in digital projects, course materials and research dissemination. By generating their own IIIF manifests, users can take advantage of advanced image viewing, annotation and presentation tools available through a wide range of external applications. The IIIF initiative began with a 2023 Innovation Hub grant from the College of Arts and Sciences and received support in spring 2026 by the university's Humanities and Social Sciences Initiative.

The server is available at iiif.boisestate.edu and can be accessed by faculty and students using their institutional email and login credentials. Each user is allocated up to 250 MB of storage for image uploads. The user interface includes instructions and screencast tutorials for getting started with the server in connection with external IIIF image curation tools such as exhibit.so.

Image of rare materials taken from Professor Olsen-Smith's sample exhibit.
Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886. Herbarium, and poem to Susan Dickinson, MS Am 1118.11 and MS Am 1118.5 (B178)

Boise State faculty are encouraged to explore how this resource can enhance visual pedagogy, support digital scholarship and facilitate innovative use of IIIF image collections of rare materials increasingly available online from institutional repositories around the world.

Interested faculty and staff can connect with others through a Boise State IIIF Affinity Group now in formation by completing the IIIF Affinity Group Signup Form.

Boise State University published this content on April 23, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on April 23, 2026 at 16:03 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]