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Northwestern University Libraries make research more efficient, accessible with AWS Lambda

Public Sector Blog

The article discusses how Northwestern University Libraries leveraged the open-source International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) and AWS serverless technologies to make their digital collections more efficient and accessible for researchers worldwide.

Specifically, the article covers:

  • What IIIF is and how it works to standardize sharing of image and audio/visual resources across libraries and institutions
  • Northwestern's "Serverless-IIIF" innovation, which utilizes AWS Lambda and other serverless services to handle bursty IIIF requests in a cost-effective and scalable manner
  • The benefits of Serverless-IIIF, including improved user experience, global accessibility, and significant cost savings compared to traditional servers
  • The growing adoption and community contributions to Serverless-IIIF from other institutions like Princeton and Notre Dame
  • Northwestern's future plans to implement 3D image manipulation using Serverless-IIIF and its potential application beyond cultural institutions
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