A set of original handwritten letters housed in the Jesuit Archive in Rome has been scanned and transcribed and is now available freely on the web for research and study. A collaboration between Boston College Libraries, the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies and Emanuele Colombo of DePaul University, the Digital Indipetae Database offers an ordered glimpse into the mind and world of Jesuit priests applying for assignments worldwide for missionary work.

The content within the searchable catalog was prepared over years by a team of international scholars transcribing and describing documents. In that time, a team of Libraries staff worked with them on image provision, metadata, rights, technology and functionality. A customized Omeka site was designed to accommodate particular metadata needs and a relational database was developed to search, store and index data, and provide access to content, data, and records. The database allows for collaborative data input and editing across the multiple institutions involved, and is integrated for searching via the Portal to Jesuit Studies.

The Libraries are pleased to support this resource and enable research in collaboration with our Boston College partners. For more information, please consult the Digital Indipetae Database.