Oculus: Using Open APIs to Share Harvard’s Digitized Books and Manuscripts

Harvard University IT Summit

June 5, 2014

Our Speakers

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Jud Harward, Director of Research Computing for the Arts and Humanities, Academic Technology Services, Harvard University Information Technology Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University Rashmi Singhal, Software Engineer, HarvardX Randy Stern, Director, Systems Development, Library Technology Services, Harvard University Information Technology Jeff Emanuel, Senior Project Lead (Instructional Development), HarvardX

How do you view digitized books and manuscripts? Page Delivery Service – the old browser version

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/10840328?n=8&printThumbnails=true

Slide thanks to Randy Stern

PDS Drawback 1: Each Archive Had Its Own Viewer

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Bavarian State Library Houghton Library

Uses DFG

Viewer

Uses PDS

Viewer WWW

PDS Drawback 2: Old Fashioned Interface Contrast Chip Goines’ Tablet PDS (2012)

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/mobile/index.html?id=10840328

Slide thanks to Randy Stern

PDS Drawback 3: Difficulty in Adding Features

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•  2 page view with opening

•  Better ways to navigate a volume

•  Support for layered views (e.g., image and transcription)

•  Support for annotation

•  Ability to compare documents from multiple archives and even to assemble “virtual” volumes

Project Timeline

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•  July, 2012: Initial meetings with Jeffrey Hamburger

•  November, 2012: Digital Arts and Humanities Committee charters working group

•  February, 2013: Working group reports backs favoring implementation of new page viewer

o  based on the Stanford-led Digital Medieval Manuscript Initiative o  open source and compliant with public APIs

•  March – May 2013: discussions o  with HarvardX linking new page viewer with HarvardX History

of the Book modules; o  with Library Technical Advisory Board

•  June, 2013: Samantha Earp and Robert Lue of HarvardX commit funding for a 1 year developer

•  December, 2013: Rashmi Singhal starts as principal Harvard developer of new Harvard viewer christened Oculus

Concept & Requirements

Politics

Implementation

Risks vs Benefits of Oculus Strategy

•  Risks: o  Large number of organizations involved with multiple handoffs

in development: Stanford, HarvardX, Harvard LTS

o  Many chefs, few cooks

o  Harvard does not control all the decisions or resources

•  Benefits o  Open source result built according to open standards

o  Strong possibility of support via community process going forward

o  Tool should be compatible with multiple archives

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Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University

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http://youtu.be/s7YsyBvHCxU

Rashmi Singhal, Software Engineer, HarvardX

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Perspective from the Library

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Library Technology Services goals

•  Provide an improved book display user interface •  Expose digital content through standard APIs •  Position content for future uses (transcription,

annotation) •  Collaborate more!

•  within Harvard (building on the successful Tablet PDS collaboration)

•  externally with peer institutions

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Improved book display - Oculus

Improved book display - Oculus

•  2 page view of book opening •  Full screen mode •  Annotation ready

•  Ability to display Shared Canvas books from both the DRS and other institutions within the same U/I

•  Modern javascript implementation

Open Harvard library digital content for reuse and allow Harvard to reuse external content

• A content delivery API (the digital book or digital

image) •  not a metadata API (title, author, subject)

Two pronged approach: • Represent the physical object in a common data

model •  (Shared Canvas)

• Deliver and receive data via a common API •  (IIIF – the International Image Interoperability Framework)

Common Data Model - Shared Canvas

http://www.shared-canvas.org

Open Annotation

http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/

IIIF - IIIF Image API

http://iiif.io/api/image/1.1/ e.g. http://ids.lib.harvard.edu/ids/iiif/5981100/1024,1024,512,512/pct:50/0/native.jpg

IIIF - IIIF Presentation API

…

"canvases": [

{

"@id":"http://www.example.org/iiif/book1/canvas/p1.json",

"@type":"sc:Canvas",

"label":"p. 1",

"height":1000,

"width":750,

"images": [

// Links to the Content resources go here ...

]

}, …

IIIF Collaborators

•  Bibliothèque nationale de France •  British Library •  Oxford University •  Stanford University •  Johns Hopkins University •  University of Fribourg (e-codices) •  Saint Louis University (T-PEN) •  Drew University (DM) •  TextGrid •  Los Alamos National Laboratory •  Yale University •  Harvard University •  Cambridge University

•  ARTstor •  Cornell University •  Princeton University •  Walters Art Museum •  National Library of Norway •  The National Archives (UK) •  … and more

Last but not least – Improved future positioning

•  Built on the W3C Open Annotation framework •  Support for the Open Knowledge Foundation’s

Annotatorjs package •  Compatibility with the HUIT Academic Technology

Services “Catch” annotation store (“Common Annotation, Tagging, and Citation at Harvard”)

•  Open source, with community support (https://github.com/IIIF )

Perspective from HarvardX

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Innovative technology for a truly innovative learning experience

The Book: Histories Across Time and Space (HUM 1.Nx) is a Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Array of Multimedia Learning Objects that Stresses User Direction and Non-Linearity to Create a Unique and Effective Learning Experience

Innovation and Intimacy: Toward a More Effective User Experience

Innovation and Intimacy: Toward a More Effective User Experience

Innovation and Intimacy: Toward a More Effective User Experience

Thank you.

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