Using Static IIIF for Digital Scholarship: the Paul Thomas Annotated Project

Although more and more Digital Scholarship tools support IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework), deployment barriers such as server requirements and sustainability and maintenance concerns put these features out of reach for many projects. In this presentation, we describe the static web approach we are using for Paul Thomas Annotated: In the Margins, an ongoing digital scholarship project featuring annotated, IIIF-capable screenshots from Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography. Our workflow involves using free and low-cost tools to create and deploy level-0 IIIF image derivatives and manifests, collaboratively encode IIIF annotations, and publish our collection. Our project website uses CollectionBuilder (a Jekyll-based digital exhibition tool), customized to feature a IIIF viewer, a faceted search for project-specific metadata, and a unique front-end design inspired by the aesthetics of the films themselves. We describe how we selected these tools and explore the strengths and challenges of our approach, as well as the challenges and possibilities of IIIF implementation for digital scholarship projects.