The Digital Library for the University's Collections
Discover is the University of York's digital library platform, providing free access to digitised collections from the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the University Library, and cultural heritage partners.
Our collections span centuries of history, from medieval manuscripts to twentieth-century photographs, and are made freely available to researchers, students, and members of the public worldwide.
About the platform
Discover is built on an open, metadata-driven infrastructure centred on the IIIF Presentation API. Each layer of the platform is designed to be transparent, portable, and standards-based.
All descriptive metadata follows the Dublin Core schema and is maintained in a master spreadsheet that serves as the single authoritative source for all collections. This approach keeps metadata accessible to archivists and curators without requiring specialist tooling. The spreadsheet can be opened in Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice, or any plain-text editor, and is straightforwardly preservable for the long term.
A serverless pipeline (AWS Lambda, TypeScript) reads this metadata, transforms it into IIIF manifests, and stores them on Amazon S3. An index manifest aggregates all collections and acts as the source from which the Discover website is built. Both the index manifest and any individual collection manifest can be opened directly in any IIIF-compatible viewer.
Every item is assigned a persistent ARK (Archival Resource Key) identifier, ensuring stable, citable references that continue to resolve over time.
The Discover frontend and backend API are built with TypeScript, React, and Node.js. The platform uses the IIIF standard for the display of metadata and digital assets, and OpenSearch as the foundation of its search API. A combination of open-source IIIF community components and custom-developed components delivers a rich, user-friendly experience for both general users and researchers.
Using the collections
We currently make all content metadata and images available as IIIF manifests. This allows students and researchers to see detailed, zoomable images through our Discover website and any other online IIIF viewer such as Mirador or UniversalViewer.
More information about IIIF and related projects is available on the IIIF website.
Our Collections
We hold thousands of digitised items across a wide range of subjects and formats, including:
- Chapbooks Collection - a rich archive of early printed pamphlets and broadsides
- University of York Art Collection - artworks acquired over the life of the University
- York Cause Papers - ecclesiastical court records from the Diocese of York
- York Visitation Court Books - records of visitations to the Diocese of York
- Wilberforce Memorial - materials relating to the abolitionist William Wilberforce
Images and Metadata
All images are stored on Amazon S3 and served through the IIIF Image API, allowing for high-quality, zoomable images that can be accessed globally with low latency. Metadata is also stored in S3 as part of the IIIF Presentation API manifests, ensuring that all descriptive information is closely linked to the digital assets it describes.
We use a combination of manual curation and automated processes to ensure the quality and consistency of our metadata. The master spreadsheet is regularly reviewed and updated by our team of archivists and curators, while automated validation checks help maintain data integrity across the platform.
Transcriptions
Machine-generated transcriptions are produced using AI, stored on Amazon S3, and linked within each item's IIIF manifest as supplementing annotations. They are viewable through our Discover platform. We use a custom-built transcription-compare tool to check individual transcriptions to make sure we use the right AI model for each collection.
Contact us
If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact us. We are happy to help with any inquiries related to our collections, IIIF manifests, or the Discover platform.