A Collaborative Approach
between Art History andLiterature via IIIF
Kiyonori Nagasakinagasaki@dhii.jp
International Institute for Digital Humanities, Japan
Tetsuei Tsuda
tsuda@tobunken.go.jp
Tokyo Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Japanthe Taishō Tripitaka consisting of 12 volumes originally published in 1933. SATiDB provides annotations
for about 5,200 Buddhist icons (busson) and symbols(sanmayagyō and mandala) in the books and several
search functions of the annotations with a simple
translator from English to technical terms in CJK characters via the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism. As theannotations use a vocabulary of attributes of Buddhist
icons, such as hair style, sitting style, type of chair, possessions, etc., which was defined by this project due tothe absence of such a vocabulary in the source data,
users can also search the objects by clicking a checkbox of one or more term in a list form of the vocabulary(Figure 1).

X. Jie Yang
xyang@ucalgary.ca
University of Calgary, Canada
Yuho Kitazakiyuho.kitazaki@gmail.com
University of Tokyo, Japan
A. Charles Muller
acmuller@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Univerisity of Tokyo, JapanMasahiro Shimoda
shimoda@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp
University of Tokyo, JapanIntroduction
This paper describes a collaborative approach of information exchange between art history and literature
via IIIF as conducted by two projects: the SATDaizō kyō Text Database Committee (SAT) and a project to leverage an open dataset of the National Institute of Japanese Literature. This approach is technically similar to that used by previous projects such as
TILE and TEI. However, as it has not been easy for themto fully treat the binding of images of a book between
Web services, this approach adopts the IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) so that both
can connect easily and efficiently. After explaining thedistinctive aspects of both projects, we will introduce
a collaborative solution.
In May 2016, SAT released the SAT Taishō zō ImageDB (SATiDB), which includes digital facsimiles of a series of Buddhist images and their interpretations inFigure 1. A search result of “burning hair”

As the system is compliant with IIIF, the images andannotations can be leveraged in various ways, evenfrom other web sites. SATiDB has a function to expose
several objects in parallel by clicking checkboxes ofcropped images by coordination of each object in thesearch results on the IIIF viewer, Mirador (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Checked images are displayed in parallel.

The annotations were embedded by forty-three researchers in the field of Japanese art history on a web
collaboration system in 2015. We developed the system utilizing RedHat Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP,
jQuery, and Annotorious, which enabled the easy annotation of images. The annotations were stored in
PostgreSQL including attributes such as date and responsibility. After input, the data were converted into
IIIF Presentation API and distributed with hi-resolution images converted from 60M-pixel images delivered with IIIF Image API. This system provides researchers of Japanese art history with a brand newfunction to see and compare Buddhist icons and symbols. Many positive comments have been received
from the researchers of Japanese art history and thenumber of visitors of the site was over 12,000 in thefirst month, but no papers have yet been produced explicitly using this system.
The other project also developed a Web collaboration system to embed transcription of Japanese texts(the issues of such transcription have been describedby Nagasaki et al, 2016) line-by-line in the style of IIIF
annotation which enables to search images as-theyare via Smart-GS. (Hashimoto et al, 2014) It adopts
OpenSeaDragon and its plugins to annotate images
with zooming and has a function to convert them into
the format of IIIF Presentation API. So far, two premodern woodcut printing books written in cursive
Japanese script were completely done by two researchers and available via customized Mirador for
right-to-left viewing-direction and vertical texts (Figure 3).

Finally, we explain the approach of linking bothprojects. As one of the two transcribed woodcut printing books includes names of Buddhist saints, we addedtags on the names to trigger an event to search thename and prepare a function to request queries to theSATiDB. On the other hand, in the SATiDB, a function
to distribute only a list of search results including images cropped by IIIF Image API was implemented topull search results from other Web sites by use of aform of URL such as:
http://dzkimgs.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SATi/key:_keyword_Figure 4. Search result of SATiDB by clicking a red-coloredpart of transcribed text

As a result, readers– primarily researchers, but
laypersons as well– can see images of related Buddhist icons on SATiDB while reading the book. SeeFigure 4 to understand background of it. This is a typical solution of IIIF and easily applicable for any environment in the digital humanities.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
Numbers JP15H05725, JP16H03422.
Bibliography
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Figure 3. Customized Mirador for right-to-left viewing-direction and vertical texts

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