The University of Macerata and the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries (ICCU) have recently signed a three years’ lasting agreement concerning the cataloguing, creation of metadata and digitization of Leopardi’s autographs that are not preserved in the National Library of Naples.
In order to achieve this research activity, the PhD School of the Macerata University has launched the following research project: “Digital Leopardi’s Library. Cataloguing, digitization and metadata of Leopardi’s manuscripts preserved in the main extra Neapolitan autograph collections”.
The related PhD research scholarship is co-financed by the Marche Region and the Fillippetti s.p.a. and is sponsored by the Centro nazionale di Studi leopardiani in Recanati; it aims at developing and keeping the project itself, through the tutorship of prof. Laura Melosi, who is the Director of the “Giacomo Leopardi” chair of the Macerata University.
The research activities will be carried out in line with similar efforts undertaken by the National Library of Naples; to this end the software Manus Online shall be employed and in its online portal the descriptions of Leopardi’s autographs will be published in a dedicated Special Project.
The goal of the project is the creation of a digital database aimed at valorizing Leopardi’s autographs and able to create thematic and semantic routes, as well as to offer detailed and new browsing possibilities to users.