Jesuit Books and Libraries in Europe, 1540s-1770s
The European Jesuit Libraries Provenance Project
This is the largest census of books owned by European Jesuit institutions prior to the suppression. It includes both texts currently held in libraries and information from pre-1773 inventories, and is an ongoing project created by Kathleen Comerford (Georgia Southern University).
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The EJLPP depends not only on libraries willing to share their collections, but on student interns. Our tenth assistant, Baoxin Lau (BA student), completed her semester with us in Spring 2021! Since then, we've had four more students, including the prize-winning Mady Bullard (see the About Us section for more), who is currently pursuing a degree in Library and Information Studies at Valdosta State. Students have created and maintained the Digital Commons site, worked on biographies for Jesuit authors, and helped me create the lists of women printers. I'm so proud of the work they all have done, and grateful to Georgia Southern for its support of student and faculty research.
Interpretations and Analyses of the Data
On this page, you'll find supporting information (definitions we work with, programs we've used, etc.) and some of the ways which we are using the huge amount of information we have: data visualizations, presentations, publications, etc.
I. Supporting Information
Our People
Kalan Eppey, intern for Summer 2021, created a set of brief biographies of the Jesuit authors in our collection. This is also available at our Digital Commons site.
We do not yet have a companion set of biographies for other authors.
Our Subject Terms
Will Hastings, intern for Fall 2022, created this list of definitions we are using to organize the books by subject.
Our Geography
The books were printed in, and used by, a Europe which looked quite different from the one we are living with today. To help sort those details out, I consulted a number of atlases (including the Atlas Geographicus Societatis Iesu) and map sites. I recommend Old Maps Online, Euratlas, and the Perry-Castañeda Library
Map Collection at the University of Texas as good starting places.
II. Data Visualizations
Coming soon!
III. Information about the Programs We Use
The EJLPP is maintained with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
For print networks, we are using RootsMagic and planning on using Gephi.
Our graphs are generated by Excel or by RAWGraphs.