Pangur docsLink a digitised facsimile
You can connect a manuscript or book in your library to a library's or archive's online digitisation, so that its leaves open in Pangur's reader and transcription desk. This page explains what you need, how the link is kept, and what happens when the images do not load.
Many libraries and archives publish digitised manuscripts and early printed books through IIIF, a standard way of serving page images that other software can display. When you link an item to such a digitisation, Pangur shows the repository's images leaf by leaf in the item's Read tab, and you can transcribe them, cite them and ask about them. Pangur does not copy the images. They load from the repository's own server each time you view them.
A linked digitisation is one kind of facsimile, which is Pangur's word for the leaf images that Read and Transcribe show. Your own photographs of a manuscript are facsimiles too, and so is a PDF or image attached to the item. Photographing a manuscript has its own page, Photograph a manuscript.
Before you start
You need the address of the digitisation and a shelfmark on the item.
The address can be the page in the repository's online viewer, such as a page on the National Library of Scotland's digital gallery, or the IIIF manifest itself, which is the file that lists the images and often ends in manifest.json.
The shelfmark matters because Pangur files the link under the item's repository and shelfmark rather than under the item alone. The item's Repository or archive and Collection or shelfmark fields should therefore be filled in. If Collection or shelfmark is empty, Pangur falls back to the Call number, and if it can find no shelfmark at all it refuses the link, explaining that a manuscript needs a shelfmark so the link can be found again.
Pangur reads the repository's manifest through a lookup service that the administrator of your Pangur server sets up. Without it, Pangur tells you that facsimile lookup is not configured on this server, and you cannot link a digitisation.
Linking a digitisation
- Open the item and choose its Read tab.
- In the add panel (shown when the item has nothing to read, or after Add a copy), find Or link a library's digitised copy.
- Paste the viewer or manifest address and choose Link.
Pangur asks the repository for its manifest and then prepares the leaves. When it is ready, the digitisation appears in the copies strip as a copy of its own, held by the repository, with one surrogate for each image. If the item had no other copy, the digitisation becomes its reading copy and opens in the facsimile viewer, which is described in Read a source.
Pangur also files the manifest address on the item as a link attachment, so that the link travels with the item.
One link for every citation of a volume
Because the link is kept under the repository and shelfmark, any other item in the same project with the same repository and shelfmark finds the same facsimile. A second reference to the same volume, for example, needs no link of its own. When a PDF you are reading cites that shelfmark, its entry in References offers View facsimile, which opens the cited leaf.
Facsimiles Pangur finds on its own
Pangur can link a facsimile without being asked in two cases: when the item's own URL points to a digitisation, and when the item already has a link attachment to a IIIF manifest. An assistant connected to Pangur can also link one for you with the MCP tool link_manuscript_facsimile. To see where a facsimile came from, open About this facsimile in the copy's More for this copy menu. Under Linked it says whether the facsimile was linked by you, linked by an assistant, found automatically from the item's URL, taken from a link attachment in your library, photographed by you, or rendered from an attached PDF or image. The same panel gives the shelfmark, the manifest address and a link to the repository's own viewer.
Unlinking a digitisation
Choose Unlink in the copy's More for this copy menu. Pangur forgets the link it holds for this shelfmark. The link attachment that Pangur filed on the item stays where it is, and you can delete it separately if you no longer want it.
When the images do not load
Because repository images are fetched directly from the repository, the facsimile viewer depends on that server being up. If it cannot load the manifest or a leaf, the viewer says that it could not open the facsimile and gives the repository's own viewer as a link. If only some images could not be prepared, the facsimile's status says which ones, and the rest remain usable.
From an assistant or the command line
An assistant can ask whether a manuscript has a facsimile with manuscript_facsimile, page through its leaves with manuscript_leaves, and look at a leaf with manuscript_leaf. From a terminal, pangur manuscript link ITEM URL links a digitisation and pangur manuscript facsimiles ITEM lists an item's facsimiles. See MCP tools and the command-line reference.
On the iPhone and iPad
The iPhone and iPad app's Read tab has Link a digitised copy…, which works in the same way.
References and connections
Pangur can read the works a stored PDF cites and tell you which are already in your library. This page explains how that scan works, what each status means, how to import the rest, and what the Connections graph shows.
Transcribe a manuscript
A transcription is the text of a facsimile's leaves, kept line by line against the image. This page walks through a first transcription, with or without a model's draft, and then describes the transcription desk's controls, versions and reading rules.