Introduction

This chapter discusses library collection development and outreach for Italian studies. It covers materials, in all formats, that document the Italian Peninsula, including the Vatican City and San Marino, as well as the Italophone populations in Switzerland, the Adriatic (Croatia), Slovenia, and the Italian diaspora. For materials produced in this region, Italian is the primary language, but there is an enduring tradition of materials published in local and regional dialects. North American research libraries also collect Italian Studies materials in English and other languages, primarily French and German.

Given the important role and contributions of Italy and Italians throughout history, Italian studies in North American institutions concentrate heavily in the humanities, especially the history and literature of Italy, and the study of art, music, and cinema. Italian publishers also are active in disciplines that have close historical ties to Italy, including archeology, classics, and religion, especially the Catholic Church. Italian studies collections reflect important research in economics, anthropology and sociology, political science, linguistics, and other social science areas. Additional themes and subjects include feminist and women’s history, and emigration and immigration.

The Academic Field

Italian studies research can be found throughout the university and is strongly interdisciplinary in nature. Your primary contacts will likely be with faculty and students in history and literature departments. Research and teaching on Italian history often focuses on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the 18^th-century Enlightenment, the 19^th-century movements towards unification collectively known as the Risorgimento, and the early 20^th century, especially the two world wars and fascism. The Italian diaspora and the experiences of immigrants and refugees in Italy are emerging topics. Especially in the medieval and early modern period, the study of Italian history is often part of broader European history. Before unification in the late 19^th century, the Peninsula was split into a network of city-states, duchies, and republics, resulting in a strong tradition of local and regional history. Consequently, you will find research and publications focusing not only on today’s dominant cities—Rome, Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, and Turin—but also on smaller cities such as Ferrara, Pisa, Sienna, Brescia, Bergamo, and Salerno. Librarians should work with faculty to establish any specific regional areas of interest.

Classics, especially focused on the Roman Empire, occasionally comes under the purview of librarians with responsibilities for Italian studies. Italy has a strong tradition of scholarship and publishing in classics and Latin, and scholars working in this discipline may be located in departments of classics, history, linguistics, anthropology or archaeology. Within the field of anthropology, ethnology, and folklore, academic studies emphasize field research of the “other” within Italy, with a focus on the south (Mezzogiorno) and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Popular religion, tales, festivals, and rituals are common subjects of study. Cultural anthropology in Italy looks at contemporary Italian society from an activist and ideological perspective, addressing issues such as class struggle, youth movements, and cultural stratifications through political lenses of communist or socialist thought.

Scholars working in religion, music, art, and film departments will often use Italian materials, given Italy’s enduring importance in these disciplines and publishing programs. Depending on their duties, Italian studies librarians may collaborate with colleagues to collect materials on the Catholic Church and its influence in Italy and on the experience of Jews in Italy. In the arts, they may work to ensure that the collection acquires relevant materials on Italian composers or on musical genres such as opera; on Italian art, design, fashion, and museum studies; and on film genres including Italian neo-realism, commedia all’italiana, horror, and spaghetti westerns.

Finally, there are strong traditions of Italian social science research, especially in the fields of economics and political science. As a region with a long history of banking and trade, Italy has produced many important economists, and this continues to be an important area of research. Political science is important as well, given the many political experiments and theories that have emerged from the Peninsula, from the Romans and Machiavelli through fascism, communism and the present day. The study of women and gender is also an active area of research, with interests in early modern women, religion, female intellectuals and writers, and the contemporary women’s movement in Italy.

In the United States, Italian language is commonly taught in colleges and universities. The most recent statistics in Italian language instruction in US colleges and universities from the Modern Language Association (MLA) found enrollment in fall and summer 2016 to be 53,544 for four-year institutions and 8,167 for two-year institutions (Modern Language Association, n.d.).

Scholarly associations of note include:

• American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS; US)
• American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI; US)
• Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI; UK)
• Canadian Association for Italian Studies (CAIS; Canada)
• Italian American Studies Association (IASA; US)
• Modern Language Association (MLA; US)
• Renaissance Society of America (RSA; US)
• Society for Italian Historical Studies (SIHS; US)
• Society for Italian Studies (SIS; UK)
• Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS; UK)
• Società italiana per lo studio della storia contemporanea (SISSCO; Italian association for the study of contemporary history)

Subject-specific networks and societies include:

• H-Italy
• H-TransItalian Studies
• ISLG Bulletin, the annual newsletter of the Italian Studies Library Group, is available open access from Casalini Libri.
• JISC Italian listserv (email list for UK Italian studies scholarly community)
• Società Dantesca Italiana (Italian Dante Society)

Publishing Landscape

There are over 1,700 publishers in Italy, split between several dominant publishing groups and many small, specialized, and regional presses. Over 90% are classified as small and micro publishers (producing fewer than 40 titles/year). Small presses, often focused on specialized or niche markets, are responsible for almost 40% of the books published. Scholarly societies, academic departments and research labs, libraries and archives, religious institutions, and cultural institutions—including museums and galleries—all publish important materials for the academic market. The medium and large publishers make up less than 10% of firms, but publish approximately 60% of all titles (averaging 200-700 titles/year). While the Italian publishing industry is spread throughout the entire Peninsula and the islands, Rome and Milan are clearly the centers of the Italian book trade. In 2021, there were 90,195 titles published, of which 53,861 were new publications and the rest later editions or reprints (ISTAT, n.d., 2).

Several good resources provide overviews of the publishing landscape. Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT), the national statistical agency, publishes an annual report entitled Produzione e lettura di Libri in Italia, available online. And the Associazione Italiana Editori (AIE) publishes an annual report entitled Rapporto sullo stato dell’editoria in Italia, available in print and as an eBook. It is more detailed than the ISTAT report and contains both statistics and analysis, but must be purchased.

The AIE report for 2022 (Associazione italiana editori, 2022) offered the following breakdown of publishing by subject/genre:

• Social sciences and humanities account for 28.4% of total titles published, and include philosophy, linguistics, religion, history, history of literature, anthropology and sociology, political science, and communications and media—all of interest to North American libraries.
• If including editions of classic works, literary narratives account for about 30% of total titles published. Important sectors include novels, comic books (fumetti), biography and memoirs, and mysteries (gialli), thrillers, and horror books. Approximately one-third of all titles published in this area are current fiction.
• Italian poetry and theater books account for over 6% of total titles, while books on music and the performing arts represent 2%.
• Books for children and adolescents are one of the strongest areas of Italian publishing, but of less interest to academic librarians.
• Because of the fragmented nature of the Italian publishing industry, librarians should be aware of both the large publishers and the smaller, more specialized firms.

Mondadori is the largest publisher in Italy, capturing over 10% of the market. It publishes in all areas, with a focus on literary and popular works, both classic and new writings, as well as works in translation. The Meridiani series consists of important critical editions of key authors, both Italian and foreign. Gialli Mondadori was the first Italian series devoted to publishing mystery novels, an important Italian paraliterary genre. The Oscar Mondadori series brought mass market paperbacks to Italy. Mondadori has acquired many historical Italian publishing houses, run separately, including Einaudi and Rizzoli.

Giulio Einaudi editore, one of the most prestigious publishers, focuses on literature, history, and works of political and social theory, originally with an anti-fascist bent. Many 20^th-century intellectuals published with Einaudi, and it remains an important publisher of Italian poetry. In addition to serious literary works, current publications include a contemporary fiction series.

Other important scholarly publishers include:

• Laterza: essays, history, politics and social sciences, literary studies, reference materials.
• Viella: history, especially medieval and Renaissance studies.
• Salerno: humanities, national editions, reference materials.
• L’Erma di Bretschneider: art and archeology.
• Treccani: reference materials, dictionaries.

Collection Development Resources

Developing an Italian studies collection includes selecting and acquiring materials about Italy and its society, politics, and culture in Italian as well as in English. Materials about the Italian diaspora, including Italian-American studies, may also be covered. You may be responsible for materials in all formats, including print, electronic, born-digital, and film, along with databases.

There are two main library vendors in North America that provide English language materials on Italian studies: ProQuest, through its OASIS service, and GOBI Library Solutions, owned by EBSCO. Both supply materials from major presses in the US, UK, and Canada, as well as from small, independent presses.

Both OASIS and GOBI offer both approval plans and firm order services for print and eBooks. Libraries may decide whether to have selector orders mediated by acquisitions department staff, and each platform offers additional customization. Both firms offer patron- and data-driven acquisitions, as well as weekly notification of new titles for firm order (“slips”). They also survey book prizes, including the American Historical Association’s Howard R. Marraro Prize, for the best book in Italian history (awarded yearly), and the MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies (awarded every two years).

For Italian collection development, the main Library of Congress Classification ranges are the following:

• DG 100-999: Italian history by period and subject. DG1-400 is Ancient Rome and may be covered by Classics. If so, be clear that you do not want to get Classics materials on the approval plan.
• JV2200-2499: Italian colonies and colonization.
• KKH: Italian law.
• PC 1001-2000: Italian linguistics and philology.
• PQ 4001-6000: Italian literature.

You may include university press preferences when setting up approval plans. Important university presses and series include the following:

The University of Toronto Press has two notable series:

• The Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Library is composed of English translations of foundational works by Italian authors who have made important contributions to literary, political, historical, and cultural thought from the Renaissance through the 20^th century. Examples include critical editions of works by Aretino, Machiavelli, Petrarch, and Della Porta, as well as theorists such as Croce, Salvemini, and Bobbio.
• The Toronto Italian Studies series includes contemporary scholarship on Italy’s social, historical, literary, and artistic contributions.

Harvard University Press is another key press. Publications by their center for Renaissance studies, I Tatti, are particularly important, especially the series I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History.

Yale University Press’ strengths in the humanities and arts underscore its importance for Italian studies. In addition to Italian history, literature, poetry, art, and music, it offers the Italian Literature and Thought series, which makes representative works of Italian culture available in English.

Palgrave Macmillan’s book series Italian and Italian American Studies publishes new scholarship by emerging and established scholars in the fields of history, cultural studies, literature, and cinema.

Ecole française de Rome publishes important French research on Italy in various series, and should be considered for collections. Examples include the journal Melanges de L’Ecole française de Rome (MEFRA) and the related MEFRA series. MEFRA Moyen Age and MEFRA Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines are of particular importance, as is MEFRA Antique, which covers the classical age. All are available in print and eBooks from OpenEdition Journals, Persée, and Torrossa Digital Library (Casalini Libri). MEFRA series before 2010 are available as open access resources from Persée; publications from after 2010 can be found on OpenEdition. The monograph collection Collections de l’Ecole française de Rome is available in print, with the first 200 numbers in the collection available open access from Persée.

Other key presses for Italian studies include Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of California Press, and Princeton University Press. Scholarly trade publishers with good Italian lists include Bloomsbury Academic and Brill. Many Catholic universities have strong traditions of Italian scholarship, especially on topics related to religion and literature, which are reflected in their publishing programs. Of special note are the university presses of Fordham University and the University of Notre Dame.

In addition to secondary scholarship, academic libraries should consider English translations of Italian literature for their collections. The works of the “three crowns”—Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio—are often taught in translation not only in Italian studies classes, but in English and introductory humanities courses. Translations of Dante, in particular, have been undertaken by important poets and writers over the years. Important presses for contemporary Italian literature and poetry in English translation include: Europa Editions, Seagull Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Penguin Books, New York Review Books, Pushkin Press, and HarperCollins.

For finding and evaluating English translations of Italian literature published before 2016, try the following two reference books. Here, Italian literature is defined broadly, to include short stories, correspondence, travel accounts, memoirs, and poetry, and other literary genres:

Healey, Robin Patrick. 2015. Italian Literature Before 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Healey, Robin. 2019. Italian Literature Since 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-2016.  Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

If you are ordering books in Italian for North American libraries, there are several options, depending on the scope of your collection development. For high-quantity, active collecting, Casalini Libri, based in Fiesole, Italy, is the main book vendor of Italian books in North America, offering approval plans, subscription services, and ordering. They can provide Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as well as cataloging and metadata services for their materials. Casalini Libri is very experienced in dealing with North American libraries, and participates at conferences of the American Library Association (ALA) and Art Libraries Society (ARLIS), as well as at other professional events. They offer publications from major Italian scholarly and popular presses, as well as the smaller specialized presses that make up an important part of the Italian publishing industry. Their databases—iLibri and iLibri ART—are important resources for information about current publications, and they offer a wide range of scholarly Italian eBooks, viewable on their Torrossa Digital Library e-content platform, including the Editoria Italiana Online (EIO). Libraries can also purchase or subscribe to single-publisher packages with backfiles for important scholarly publishers.

Other companies that can provide books in Italian include Liberdomus (Libreria già Nardecchia), Libro Co. Italia, and Libreria Ledi International Bookseller.

The publishing industry supports several important book fairs in Italy. The largest and most important is the annual Salone internazionale del Libro di Torino (Turin Book Fair), which immerses attendees in current Italian cultural production by offering access to publishers, author readings, workshops, and other activities aimed at both the public and book professionals, including librarians. The other main fair of interest to academic librarians is Più libri più liberi, held in Rome. This fair focuses on the small and medium-sized publishers which form an important part of the Italian publishing landscape.

For institutions with lesser or only occasional needs for Italian language materials, online book dealers such as Amazon.it, ibs.it, and Libreriauniversitaria.it are good resources. In the US, Rizzoli and Schoenhof’s Foreign Books online bookshops carry Italian language books and work with libraries.

The Associazione Librai Antiquari d’Italia (ALAI) is the professional association of Italy’s rare and antiquarian book dealers. They are affiliated with the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), and members are distinguished by their expertise and bound by professional and ethical standards. They sponsor several fairs (salone del libro) in Milan, Turin, and other cities, and the online fair Firsts Italia. You can find the stock held by Italian rare book dealers through the ALAI website and listed on rare book aggregators such as AbeBooks, viaLibri, or Maremagnum, and you can request catalogs directly from individual dealers. Italian cultural patrimony laws place restrictions and may require export licenses on books and manuscripts created 70 years ago or earlier. Rare book vendors (librai antiquari) apply for the export licenses on behalf of customers.

Librarians can look to reviews and bibliographies to determine which titles are essential for their collections, while at the same time learning about current research trends. In addition to the journals and listservs listed in the “Academic field” section above, useful review resources include general disciplinary journals such as American Historical Review, whose review section includes books, documentary collections, films, and websites. Speculum and Renaissance Quarterly provide literature reviews for new works on medieval studies and Renaissance studies, respectively. The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books often review Italian books. For a closer view of the Italian cultural and intellectual scene, consult TuttoLibri (published weekly by the newspaper La Stampa) and L’Indice dei Libri del mese. Both are available by subscription in both print and digital formats, and both maintain an active presence on X (formerly Twitter).

In addition to using these types of periodical sources, the following annotated bibliographical works (divided by historical period) can be helpful in making an retrospective assessment of your collection:

• The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies. Leiden: Brill, 1931-
• Malato, Enrico, ed. 1995. Storia Della Letteratura Italiana. Roma: Salerno editrice. Volume 14: Bibliografia della letteratura italiana.
• Baroni, Giorgio, and Mario Puppo. 2002. Manuale critico-bibliografico per lo studio della letteratura italiana. Torino: SEI.

Single-author or topic bibliographies can help with specific assessments, and can be found within the resources above.

Good English-language resources on the Italian publishing trade include the annual publication Italian books abroad (and foreign books in Italy), produced jointly by the Giornale della libreria and the Associazione Italiana Editori (AIE) and available by download from their websites. Newitalianbooks.it, sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the publisher Treccani, is another useful source about current publications, especially popular literature and graphic novels, as well as book prizes and translations into English.

Disciplinary Resources

Italian Studies has an established set of reference materials to help guide collection development and offer in-depth assistance to students and scholars. This section of the chapter provides an overview of some of the core resources.

New scholarship in Italian studies frequently emerges as articles in scholarly journals, particularly in those listed below. You can find more information about individual titles in Ulrichsweb, or do a search there using broad terms like “Italian Studies” or “Italian History,” or narrower terms like “Dante.” For literature and cultural studies publications, the MLA International Bibliography also offers a useful ”Browse Periodicals” function.

Journals

Bolletino di Italianistica (subscription resource)

California Italian Studies (annual, open access)

Contemporary Italian Politics (subscription resource; issue 2 is annual Politics in Italy)

Diasporic Italy (IASA, subscription resource)

I Tatti studies in the Italian Renaissance (subscription resource)

Italian Culture (AAIS journal, subscription resource)

Italian Poetry Review (subscription resource)

Italian Politics (subscription resource, annual)

Italian Studies (SIS journal, subscription resource)

Italica (AATI journal, subscription resource)

Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (subscription resource)

Journal of Modern Italian Studies (subscription resource)

Modern Italy (AMSI journal, subscription resource)

Quaderni d’italianistica (CAIS journal, subscription resource)

Renaissance Quarterly (RSA journal, subscription resource)

Renaissance Studies (Society for Renaissance Studies (UK), subscription resource)

Specialized journals focused on specific authors and themes include:

Altrelettere  (on writing by and about women; open access)

Gender/Sexuality/Italy (open access)

Primary source databases

Internet Culturale brings together digital resources found in catalogs from national, university, historical, and regional libraries, and includes additional specialized resources. All materials within are open access. Of special note are the following:

• Biblioteca Digitale Italiana: digitized books and periodicals, images, and sound recordings; full-text search
• the Emeroteca Digitale Italiana: digitized serials from the post-unification period

Byterfly is a project by the Italian national research council, CNR, that offers open access digitized periodical materials from several library consortia and institutions. Other university and research center libraries have also been digitizing their periodicals collections, and are good sources, especially for regionally-based publications.

Europeana contains digital primary resources from libraries throughout Europe. You can limit by country, or use the advanced search feature.

The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) is the library of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Its digital library, DigiVatLib, contains vast open-access holdings documenting the religious, social, and political role and activities of the Catholic Church, including manuscripts, codices and printed books, and archives. The Saint Louis University Library in Missouri has the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library, the most complete microfilm collection of the BAV in North America.

Opera del Vocabolario Italiano (OVI), available from American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL), contains almost 2,000 texts in Italian dated before 1375, including texts by Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante. Better for text mining rather than narrative reading, it offers ARTFL’s advanced search functions.

The following primary source databases also contain significant materials for Italian studies scholars:

• Eighteenth Century Collections Online: from Gale, this full-text database of materials published in the UK during the 18^th century includes many translations from Italian works, as well as those with false imprints. Subscription resource.
• Making of the Modern World: from Gale, this full-text database contains works on trade, commerce, and economic and political thought from the 15^th century through the beginning of the 20^th century, including almost 2,000 titles in Italian. Subscription resource.
• Early European Books: includes collections of Italian literary works that are useful as class texts or for digital humanities textual research. It can be purchased from ProQuest. Subscription resource.
• Biblioteca Italiana: digital library and resources from La Sapienza in Rome. Open access.
• Liber Liber: another option for Italian literature that includes more minor works. Open access.

Secondary Source Databases

The subscription databases MLA International Bibliography and Historical Abstracts are good places to start researching journal articles and monographs, as is Italinemo (open access). More general online subscription indexes such as ProQuest Academic Research Library, ProQuest Periodicals Archive Online, ProQuest Periodicals Index Online, Academic Search Premier, IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences), and the open access Google Scholar are also key resources. Most offer full-text access to subscribed and open-access materials. The full-text databases of JSTOR and Project MUSE offer searching and access to important journals in the field. Casalini Libri’s Torrossa/Editoria Italiana Online is a subscription-based searchable collection of Italian scholarly journals and monographs. OpenEdition’s Journals and Books search interface, which is open access, is a good option for research produced in France.

Because of the importance of Italy in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, librarians should also be aware of subscription databases such as the Iter Bibliography, part of the Iter Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the Brepols Medieval and Early Modern Bibliographies.

News Sources and Media Outlets

Italy has a rich periodical and newspaper tradition, with scholars finding the origins of the newspaper in the handwritten and later printed news summaries (avvisi, gazzette) that circulated in Italy starting in the 15^th century. The late 17^th century and 18^th century saw the rise of early literary journals with ties to the larger European periodical press, including such titles as the Giornale de Letterati d’Italia, Il Caffè, La Frusta letteraria. These provided accounts of wars, news briefs (faits divers), reports of scientific and literary activities, and notices of book publications.

Italy’s press has always been characterized by the country’s fractured, regional nature. There are currently about 175 newspapers published in Italy. Media organs reflect or are aimed at regional audiences, political parties, or the interests of their owners. Most of the big dailies are owned by large media conglomerates, and publish regional editions in addition to their national edition.

Several titles, nevertheless, have national scope:

• La Corriere della Sera (Milan, 1876- , RCS Media) is the most widely-read newspaper, with a center-right perspective.
• Il Giornale (Milan, 1974- , Fininvest, the Berlusconi family holding company) offers a center right/populist/Berlusconi view.
• La Repubblica (Rome, 1976- , GEDI Group) and La Stampa (Turin, 1867- , GEDI Group) are both characterized as center-left publications.
• Il Sole 24 Ore (Confindustria) focuses on business and finance and is the organ of the national chamber of commerce.
• L’Osservatore Romano is the daily newspaper of the Vatican, reporting on activities related to the Catholic Church.
• La Gazzetta dello Sport (RCS Media Group) concentrates on sports reporting.

All of these national papers are available in print and as microfilm subscriptions. The price of print and microfilm, however, may be prohibitive, unless there is a clear reason to maintain an institutional subscription. Content in many of the regional newspapers and some national papers is available in NexisUni, Factiva, and PressReader. The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) has a collection of Italian newspapers for its members.

Some current programming of Italy’s national radio and television service, RAI, can be accessed from its website. A separate website hosts archival footage of RAI: RAI Teche. There are several privately owned free-to-air and cable channels. The former Italian president, Silvio Berlusconi, founded and owns the media conglomerate Mediaset. Additional news and media sources can be found in the News section of the European Studies Section (ESS) Italian Studies Guide.

Catalogs, Bibliographies, Archives

National and other major library catalogs

Italy has a national union catalog and several portals that bring together library resources. The scope and depth of these important resources are constantly expanding. The Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo unico (ICCU) is responsible for the catalog of Italy’s national collection, and hosts a website containing the country’s union catalog, as well as other specialized databases. Its main portal, Alfabetica, includes the following:

• Opac SBN: the Italian union catalog, with holdings of all branches of the national library and other university and historical libraries.
• Cataloghi storici: digitized catalogs of 39 historical libraries.
• EDIT 16: an important inventory of 16^th-century Italian imprints.
• Manus online: a database of descriptive bibliographical information and images of manuscript materials, including correspondence, held in national, private, and ecclesiastic libraries in Italy.

The ICCU also publishes a series of regionally based print catalogs for libraries and archives, and other bibliographical resources helpful for doing research or locating materials in Italian institutions.

For bibliographical and holdings information on Italian periodicals, the University of Bologna hosts the ACNP (Catalogo italiano dei periodici; Italian Periodical Catalog).

Archives

The Sistema Archivistico Nazionale (SAN) portal is a key source for learning about different Italian archives, and searching for archival material. It includes information gleaned from digitized catalogs and inventories as well as digitized primary source materials, when available. Its scope is broad, covering national, regional, local, and private archives. Also noteworthy is the following:

Mazzatinti, G. 1890-. Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’Italia. Firenze: L.S. Olschki. This ongoing inventory of manuscripts in Italian libraries is now partially superseded by Manus Online, noted above, and by inventories and resources on the websites of the archives and libraries. It is also available as a digital resource from the publisher. Earlier issues are available in Google Books.

Bibliographies

While the databases and indexes listed in the section above are excellent starting points, historians should know about the Bibliografia storica nazionale, the national bibliography of Italian history.

Bibliografia generale della lingua e della letteratura italiana (BiGLI) is an annual bibliography, worldwide in scope, providing citation information for periodical articles and books relating to Italian language, literature, and culture. Online subscriptions are available from Casalini Libri.

Oxford Bibliographies: Medieval Studies and Oxford Bibliographies: Renaissance and Reformation (subscription resources) provide excellent bibliographical guidance for topics in these time periods and are useful for both collection development and reference purposes.

The British Library has a particularly strong collection of Italian imprints from the early years of printing; and its short-title catalogs can thus be very useful for tracking down bibliographic information:

• Johnson, A. F. 1958. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in Italy and of Italian Books Printed in Other Countries from 1465 to 1600 Now in the British Museum. London: Trustees of the British Museum.
• British Library. 1986. Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Italian Books in the British Library. London; Wolfeboro, N.H.: The Library.

For information on the British Library’s holdings, see: British Library’s Italian Print Collections.

For secondary sources on Dante, consult the Bibliografia Dantesca Internazionale (International Dante Bibliography), created by the Società Dantesca Italiana and the Dante Society of America. It has both Italian and English interfaces and is available open access.

Reference Tools

There are many reference tools for Italian studies, but a few stand out as “must haves” for any university/college library covering this field. Luckily, some of the more important titles have been turned into digital resources.

• Baroni, Giorgio, and Mario Puppo. 2002. Manuale critico-bibliografico per lo studio della letteratura italiana. Torino: SEI.
• Caesar, Ann, and Michael Caesar. 2007. Modern Italian Literature. Cambridge: Polity.
• Cambridge Italian-English Dictionary. Open access.
• Casadei, Alberto, and Marco Santagata. 2007. Manuale di letteratura italiana contemporanea. Roma: GLF editori Laterza.
• Casadei, Alberto, and Marco Santagata. 2007. Manuale di letteratura italiana medievale e moderna. Rome: GLF editori Laterza.
• Dartmouth Dante Project: a searchable full-text database containing more than 70 commentaries on Dante’s Divine Comedy – the Commedia. Open access.
• Decameron Web: an interactive website from Brown University covering the Decameron. Open access.
• Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: a biographical dictionary covering Italians who have contributed to the arts, politics, science, religion, literature, and economics. Open access.
• Hainsworth, Peter, and David Robey. 2002. The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Healey, Robin. 2011. Italian Literature Before 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Healey, Robin. 2019. Italian Literature Since 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-2016. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Malato, Enrico, ed. 1995. Storia Della Letteratura Italiana. Roma: Salerno editrice. 14 vols.
  • Volumes 1 through 12 provide a chronological survey of Italian literature. Librarians should also be aware of Volume 13, which surveys bibliographic research and cultural heritage institutions, and Volume 14, which contains a detailed bibliography of Italian literature.
• Marrone, Gaetana. 2007. Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies. New York: Routledge.
• The Oregon Petrarch Open Book: contains critical editions, manuscripts, and commentary of Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Open access.
• Russell, Rinaldina. 1997. The feminist encyclopedia of Italian literature. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
• Treccani Enciclopedia Italiana: general Italian encyclopedia. Open access.

Helpful sites and guides for government information, legal documents, and country reports include:

• British Library’s West European Government Publications offers one of the best guides in this area, containing both current and historical materials. You can download their PDF on Italian government documents.
• GlobaLex’s Guide to Italian Legal Research and Resources on the Web is another great resource.
• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s page for Italy offers useful reports on Italy as well as Italian government links.

Distinctive Print Collections

North American library collections with strong Italian collections include Harvard University; Yale University; Princeton University; Wellesley College; New York Public Library; Columbia University; New York University; University of Virginia; University of Chicago; University of Toronto; University of Texas/Harry Ransom Center; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Berkeley; and Stanford University. The libraries of Notre Dame University, Fordham University, Seton Hall University, and other Catholic schools also have notable collections, especially for the medieval and early modern period, Church history, and in Italian-American studies. The Hoover Institution Library and Archives are particularly strong in rare 20th century social and political materials. Among their other strengths, the Getty Research Institute and the Beinecke Library at Yale have important collections on Italian futurism.

Professional Development and Networks

How can you meet and share information with colleagues in the profession of Italian studies and Italian studies librarianship? In North America, librarians responsible for Italian studies collections should be members of the ACRL European Studies Section (ESS), which has an active Romance Studies discussion group. ESS meets in person at ALA conferences and virtually in online workshops, discussion boards, and via a listserv. ESS also has a useful guide with resources: European Studies Section (ESS) Italian Studies Guide.

Online networks such as H-Italy and H-TransItalian Studies are incredibly useful for keeping up on current research questions and new publications. Listening to the New Books Network, Italian Studies Podcasts is a great way to hear scholars talk about their recent publications, and the podcasts are interdisciplinary in scope. The website of the Society for Italian Historical Studies (SIHS) is another good resource—see especially their Italian Currents blog and their Annual Newsletter, which provides an excellent overview of the research activities of emerging and established scholars in the field. You need to be a member to subscribe to the forum of the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS), but you can read the postings and other research-related content directly on its website. From the UK, the Society for Italian Studies (SIS) and the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) also provide rich websites as well as active X (formerly Twitter) feeds. The Istituto Italiano di Cultura is an international network of centers sponsored by the Italian government with the aim of teaching language and sharing Italian culture. Join their email list, or follow one of the especially active institutes like New York or London. Try these, or subscribe to the email lists, Facebook pages, or X feeds of the publishers, journals, libraries, and research centers mentioned above to keep abreast of publications, prizes, and events in the field. Once you find a set of email lists, social media feeds, you will be able to select those that best fit your needs.

Conclusion

This chapter offers a well-defined set of tools and resources for librarians starting out in Italian studies. It can serve to complement a smaller but well-curated ready reference shelf, both print and online, for Italian studies library work. Here are some top choices for your daily work, all described above:

Online:

• British Library’s West European Government Publications
• Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
• Internet Culturale
• Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
• Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo unico (ICCU)
• Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford Bibliographies: Medieval Studies and Oxford Bibliographies: Renaissance and Reformation)
• Treccani Enciclopedia Italiana

Print:

Hainsworth, Peter, and David Robey. 2002. The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.

Malato, Enrico, ed. 1995. Storia Della Letteratura Italiana. Roma: Salerno editrice. 14 vols.

References

Associazione italiana editori. n.d. Rapporto sullo stato dell’editoria in Italia. Milano: Associazione italiana editori.

Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT). n.d. Produzione e lettura di libri in Italia. Accessed December 5, 2023. https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/278581.

Modern Language Association. n.d. “Language Enrollment Database, 1958-2016.” Accessed November 6, 2022. https://apps.mla.org/flsurvey_search.