Frequently asked questions about the RKD Viewer

Below you will find the most frequently asked questions on the RKD Viewer. If you can’t find an answer to your question, or would like further information, don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form.
In summary

The collection of visual documentation by the RKD is being digitised to make digital art historical research possible. This means that from time to time, a small part of our collection of visual documentation will be unavailable, because it is being digitised. If you are unsure the images you seek are available, please contact us via the contact form. We would like to accomodate your art-historical research as good as possible. When the images are actually digitised, they will still be available in our study room, only now through a temporary new digital tool: the RKD Viewer. This tool will be available on some of our computers. RKD Viewer is a temporary tool, while we are working on a new online platform for digital art-historical research, through which the entire collection of Visual Documentation will be made available online in service of digital art-historical research. You can find frequently asked questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions about the RKD Viewer

• The RKD Viewer: what is it?
  • The RKD Viewer is a temporary tool in our study room, through which you can browse our firstly digitised collection of visual documentation. The RKD Viewer is made to search and find our images, and to compare them.
• What does the RKD Viewer have to offer?
  • The RKD Viewer is an easy-to-use tool to browse and to analyse images in our collection of visual documentation that have been digitised. The RKD Viewer offers many advantages: deep zooming into old images, comparing up to 25 images at once on one screen. It's also more easy to browse images in a folder with the RKD Viewer, compared to analog searching. On a user level, the RKD Viewer has been designed to match analogue manners of searching in our collection.
• Why is the RKD Viewer a temporary tool?
  
  • The RKD Viewer is a predecessor to RKD Research, an all encompassing online platform for digital art-historical research we are building. When we launch RKD Research, our RKD Viewer will become obsolete. The RKD Viewer is a temporary solution to make our digitised images accessible in our study room. More info on the digitisation of our collection can be found here.
• Can my search history be saved in RKD Viewer?
  
  • Unfortunately, it's not possible to make an account in RKD Viewer to allow you to save your favourites, such as in RKD Explore. However, it is possible to return to a certain page via the browser history. You can also forward the URLs of search results or a certain box to your own e-mail address in order to revisit it at a later moment.
• Will there be new features in the RKD Viewer in the nearby future?
  
  • Yes, but we have yet to decide which extra features the RKD Viewer have to be built. A certain feature we want to add, is to make it possible to narrow your searches and to sort your searches manually.
• Am I still able to consult the green boxes, after they are digitised and made accessible in the RKD Viewer?
  • No, the boxes won't be accessible in an analogue way anymore. With the RKD Viewer all images are accessible digitally. If you still want to study an image physically, you can print the images from the RKD Viewer manually. This can be done by clicking the image with your right mouse-button, clicking 'Save as...' and save it to your desktop, after which you can print the saved image. You can e-mail the saved image to yourself, to study it at home. Bevause of safety reasons, USB-sticks are not allowed at the RKD-computers.
• Can I print an image from the RKD Viewer, or somehow photograph it for my research?
  
  • You can request an image from the RKD Viewer via Image request. When doing so, please indicate clearly (with a link, box and folder number) where the specific image is located.
• What do the QR-codes my search results mean?
  • The QR-codes represent objects that will be digitised at a later point, these are often foldable our fragile materials. These objects are unavailable in the nearby future, both digitally and physically. In the couse of 2019 the objects will still be digitised and apposed to the RKD Viewer, in a seperate digitisation trajectory.
• Why is the RKD Viewer only accessible at the study room of the RKD, and not online?
  • The RKD Viewer is a tool that is not representative for the new online platform for digital art-historical research we are creating. The RKD Viewer won't be made accessible online, to avoid wrong expectations.
• What does it mean when I encounter box-numbers that are made red?
  • Some maps cover more than one BD-number. If the numbers are red, the maps come from different boxes, that have been put together in RKD Viewer.
• Why do I see a tab named 'Mirador Viewer' when I open images to investigate?
  • The RKD Viewer is the name for the whole Viewer. The Mirador Viewer is the part of our Viewer by which you can look at scans. Mirador Viewer is an external tool by which RKD Viewer is made possible.
• What do the small icons at the lower-right of images mean in my search results ('IIIF')?
  • IIIF (International Interoperability Framework) is an international standard that is used to show images with metadata in a standardised way on the internet. The image-scans in the RKD Viewer are IIIF-supported and the Mirador Viewer is able to process them, just like other IIIF-images from the internet. It is possible to add other IIIF-images from the internet to our RKD Viewer.