These maps show the distribution of Dante works authored by women held in present-day British and Irish library collections.

The map is based on the data gathered from the Jisc Library Hub Discover, which "exposes rare and unique research material by bringing together the catalogues of major UK and Irish libraries." Through the Jisc catalogue users can search "the holdings of the UK’s National Libraries (including the British Library), many university libraries, and specialist research libraries". 

The recovery of bibliographical data outside the Jisc Library Hub is significantly impeded by the lack of a unitary search systems for public (community, civic, city) libraries in the UK. An initial survey of current holdings in major public libraries has been included in the map below, which will be subject to change as research into present-day and historic catalogues progresses.  

This situation  differs from Italy, where the OPAC SBN "allows readers to search the collective catalogue of the National Library Service (SBN)". Click here to explore the dissemination of works in Italian library collections. 

The same is true for Ireland where Libraries Ireland allows users to search catalogues of county and city libraries across the island. In our case, the search on present-day catalogues has produced no significant result, whilst historical catalogues of subscription, circulating and public libraries active throughout the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth-century are still under review.  

Click on the circles to see the name of the library, its geographical location and the number of female-authored Dante books held in their collections. Zoom in and explore the map by area. Click on the widget icon on the right to look at statistics relating to holdings per individual library as well as per type of institution.