February 8, 2026
Zoom wars in the museum world
International Image Interoperability Framework
Museums promise open images; users demand control, skeptics call out paywalls
TLDR: IIIF, a shared standard to put high‑quality cultural images and videos online, announced its Jan 27–29, 2026 online meeting. The crowd cheered past wins, slammed clunky viewers while demanding a “bring your own viewer” button, and questioned BnF’s open-access stance—making access and control the headline debate.
IIIF — think: one shared playbook so museums and libraries can put zoomable art, books, and videos online — is getting a big 2026 online meeting, and the comment section is already spicy. Fans are reminiscing, skeptics are side-eyeing, and power users want more control. One nostalgic voice cheered, calling it “triple-I-efe” and praising the kind maintainer behind the popular Cantaloupe image server — wholesome vibes and old-school internet feels. But then came the UX rebellion: a frustrated commenter demanded a universal “choose my own viewer” button — like a Netflix profile, but for museum interfaces — so they don’t get stuck with whatever clunky viewer a site picked. Cue nods from power users who live to zoom. The real heat? A callout at France’s national library (BnF). A commenter was stunned they’d rally around a framework that “breaks down silos” while being known for fees and restrictions on public domain images. That lit the thread: is IIIF the key to open culture or just another acronym with a lock emoji? Meanwhile, institutions flaunted success stories — Wellcome’s slick viewer, the Rijksmuseum’s annotation-packed exhibits, even McGill mixing in audio — but the crowd kept circling back to control and consistency. Register for Jan 27–29 and bring popcorn here — the zoom wars are on.
Key Points
- •IIIF is a set of open standards and an international community for delivering high-quality digital images and audiovisual materials online.
- •An online IIIF community meeting is scheduled for January 27–29, 2026, with registration open.
- •Institutions like the Wellcome Collection, Rijksmuseum, SAT Daizokyo Database Project, and McGill’s DDMAL showcase real-world IIIF implementations.
- •IIIF benefits researchers, developers, and institutional leaders with cross-repository use, reuse without vendor lock-in, and cost-effective, open-source delivery.
- •Six IIIF APIs (Image, Presentation, Authorization Flow, Content Search, Change Discovery, Content State) provide core capabilities, with specified stable versions for several.