The International Image Operability Framework—more commonly known as IIIF—is a promising, open-source suite of technical standards concerned with the interoperability of digital assets across servers and web environments. In this context, interoperability refers to the ability of these assets to work together seamlessly with one another. IIIF enables a range of applications for digitally integrated museums or museums that have fully embraced digital technology, to enhance various aspects of their operations, exhibitions, and visitor experiences to enhance their online offerings. Its applications include sharing and reunifying collections cross-institutionally, providing deep zooms into images, and creating annotations, but they can only be considered truly useful if IIIF’s infrastructures and applications are re-tooled through an accessibility and inclusivity lens.

Over the past year, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Design de Plume, Inc., and Prime Access Consulting, Inc. undertook a study to identify several core issues with the existing IIIF specifications and its related applications to analyze opportunities for museums through an intentional technical case study. This report charts pathways toward an accessible and inclusive future use for IIIF, outlines IIIF’s role in transforming museum values, and identifies key next steps in achieving a more integrated application of IIIF within the museum sector.

To frame our study, we tested IIIF’s viability against its future potential in seven key areas. This established a set of actions for baseline improvement.

• Inclusive Engagement and Accessibility: Improve IIIF infrastructure to incorporate accessibility features for individuals with disabilities (e.g., providing screen reader support with alt text and visual descriptions for images).
• Technological Access and Connectivity: Address the “digital divide”, or the unequal access to and use of digital technologies such as the internet and computers among different groups of people or communities, by optimizing IIIF for enhanced remote community access (e.g., reducing bandwidth requirements for loading digital assets in areas with low-bandwidth internet).
• Indigenous Worldviews and Digital Sovereignty: Respect Indigenous Sovereignty by embedding Indigenous protocols into a digital sharing framework for culturally sensitive digital access (e.g., creating systems that enable private, tiered, or restricted access as determined by Indigenous communities).
• Language Revitalization: Enhance technical support for Indigenous languages to support language revitalization (e.g., re-tool IIIF interfaces and annotations).
• Ethical Considerations and Cultural Protocols: Align IIIF with ethical considerations regarding the digital representation of cultural heritage, respecting cultural protocols around what can be shared publicly and what should remain restricted according to Indigenous traditions.
• Interoperability and International Collaboration: Enable Canadian museums to engage with international communities and vice-versa (e.g., utilizing IIIF tools of interactivity, interoperability, and findability for global public engagement and research in/across collections).
• Curatorial and Artistic Innovation: Create new curatorial and artistic methodologies through IIIF technology (e.g., rethinking by digital display, publishing, and storytelling).

Our findings reveal that to create a more equitable, accessible, and culturally respectful digital museum experience that aligns with contemporary values of inclusion, diversity, and ethical responsibility in the digital space, we need to begin with structural changes in our software development. By sharing our findings, Canadian and international arts organizations can use our research for their own IIIF implementations.