First, we would like to create an automated way of allowing content providers to “announce” the publication of IIIF content (usually “supplemental”, i.e. a non-Manifest resource) that has some kind of relationship or relevance to other IIIF content (usually, a Manifest), particularly in cases where these relationships are not made explicit within the resource itself.
Second, we want to create a standard serialization of these “announcements” and “content publication” so that IIIF viewers and users of this content can develop automatic workflows of incorporating this related data into their systems.
The combination of these solutions may fill several needs. A general inbox (like Rerum Inbox) is useful for new announcements and broad-reaching requirements from applications like the LDN plugin for Mirador, but it does not promise that the supplements linked to will persist and does not authenticate any Announcement. A controlled inbox, owned by a hosting repository or scholarly organization, may not accept contributions, but will still announce trusted supplements by authenticated sources. An inbox service that authenticates users or applications may land somewhere in between.
Variation(s)
Supplemented Presentation Use case:
Sharing supplemental IIIF information for enhanced presentation. For example, as Tables of Contents, Transcriptions, Search Services.
Active examples: Harvard, UPenn, Leipzig/Fragmentarium, E-codices, BSB, (UPitt working example underway)
Transcription tool project announcement/flag-planting Use Case:
Announcements when projects (like transcription) are begun or completed in an application using resources held at a third party institution.
Peer Review Use Case:
Remotely approving scholarly contributions to open resources.
Dynamic Collection Use Case:
Contributing items to lists and collections held in an open community.
Example: an institution could create a collection by minting a resource id and ask for notifications about resources that belong with this collection. Third party users or institutions could create manifest resources and then create a notification “announcing” that this Manifest belongs to the given collection.
With SOLID (https://solid.inrupt.com/), there is the possibility that users will one day create annotations on IIIF content that are stored in personal data pods. Notifications will be needed to announce distributed comments about a shared resource. IIIF clients should have a way to learn of these distributed discussions and allow the user to draw content into a unified visual environment.
Proposed Solutions
The Linked Data Notification Specification offers a strong foundation for a solution.
It offers the possibility of any institution creating an inbox to receive content.
A major hurdle however to adoption is the overhead of waiting for an institution to create an inbox before announcements can be made.
One solution is the possibility of default or fallback inboxes. IIIF resources can still announce institution specific inboxes, but clients can be programmed to already be aware of default inboxes. The Rerum Inbox (and IIIF client viewer plugins like the mirador-ldn-plugin) is the best example to date of such a case. It has allowed the connection of resources without any extra effort on behalf of manifest producing institutions.
Description of Rerum Inbox
The Rerum Inbox is a place for anyone to post and read announcements about any digital resource published on the Internet. A strong supporter of the IIIF standard, it is the sc:Manifest objects for which this has been created. The millions of images made available by libraries, museums, universities, and others throughout the world are now enriched by the linked knowledge of a planet full of scholars and researchers. Only the most relevant and intentional notes are intended for this announcement inbox, so the information is more immediately useful than aggregations that simply crawl the graph of Linked Data looking for relationships without discrimination.
Use case submitted by @cubap
Description
First, we would like to create an automated way of allowing content providers to “announce” the publication of IIIF content (usually “supplemental”, i.e. a non-Manifest resource) that has some kind of relationship or relevance to other IIIF content (usually, a Manifest), particularly in cases where these relationships are not made explicit within the resource itself.
Second, we want to create a standard serialization of these “announcements” and “content publication” so that IIIF viewers and users of this content can develop automatic workflows of incorporating this related data into their systems.
The combination of these solutions may fill several needs. A general inbox (like Rerum Inbox) is useful for new announcements and broad-reaching requirements from applications like the LDN plugin for Mirador, but it does not promise that the supplements linked to will persist and does not authenticate any Announcement. A controlled inbox, owned by a hosting repository or scholarly organization, may not accept contributions, but will still announce trusted supplements by authenticated sources. An inbox service that authenticates users or applications may land somewhere in between.
Variation(s)
Supplemented Presentation Use case:
Sharing supplemental IIIF information for enhanced presentation. For example, as Tables of Contents, Transcriptions, Search Services.
Transcription tool project announcement/flag-planting Use Case:
Announcements when projects (like transcription) are begun or completed in an application using resources held at a third party institution.
Peer Review Use Case:
Remotely approving scholarly contributions to open resources.
Dynamic Collection Use Case:
Contributing items to lists and collections held in an open community.
Other Activity Types, Motivations, Purposes:
ActivityStreams Activity Types and Web Annotation Motivations and Purposes
SOLID Use Case:
With SOLID (https://solid.inrupt.com/), there is the possibility that users will one day create annotations on IIIF content that are stored in personal data pods. Notifications will be needed to announce distributed comments about a shared resource. IIIF clients should have a way to learn of these distributed discussions and allow the user to draw content into a unified visual environment.
Proposed Solutions
The Linked Data Notification Specification offers a strong foundation for a solution.
It offers the possibility of any institution creating an inbox to receive content.
A major hurdle however to adoption is the overhead of waiting for an institution to create an inbox before announcements can be made.
One solution is the possibility of default or fallback inboxes. IIIF resources can still announce institution specific inboxes, but clients can be programmed to already be aware of default inboxes. The Rerum Inbox (and IIIF client viewer plugins like the mirador-ldn-plugin) is the best example to date of such a case. It has allowed the connection of resources without any extra effort on behalf of manifest producing institutions.
Description of Rerum Inbox
The Rerum Inbox is a place for anyone to post and read announcements about any digital resource published on the Internet. A strong supporter of the IIIF standard, it is the sc:Manifest objects for which this has been created. The millions of images made available by libraries, museums, universities, and others throughout the world are now enriched by the linked knowledge of a planet full of scholars and researchers. Only the most relevant and intentional notes are intended for this announcement inbox, so the information is more immediately useful than aggregations that simply crawl the graph of Linked Data looking for relationships without discrimination.
Additional Background
Full (draft) documentation at
https://inbox-docs.rerum.io/#!/specifications