Dante Society of America and Società Dantesca Italiana Bibliographical Database Partnership

Bibliografia Dantesca Internazionale/ International Dante Bibliography

On March 23, 2017, Presidents Marcello Ciccuto of the Società Dantesca Italiana (SDI) and Albert Russell Ascoli of the Dante Society of America (DSA) signed a path-breaking Partnership Agreement for collaboration of the two Societies in the production of a new, bilingual version of the Bibliografia Dantesca Internazionale/International Dante Bibliography, with enhanced search capabilities. Henceforth, this powerful bibliographical instrument will integrate the materials published in the DSA’s annual American Dante Bibliography, which will also continue to appear separately on the DSA website.

The partnership is the result of a year of constructive negotiations between the Societies and serious discussions within their respective governing bodies. The DSA gratefully acknowledges the special contributions made by Professor Elisa Brilli of the University of Toronto, and newly appointed Liaison of the DSA to the SDI, during this process. The new collaborative bibliographical platform described below will go live before the end of 2017, perhaps as early as September, and will be freely accessible to members of the DSA and in fact to all scholars and students of Dante. A further announcement will be made at the time of the launch.

Among the most important features of this joint bibliographic venture are the following:

• free access online for all DSA members to the enhanced Bibliografia Dantesca Internazionale/International Dante Bibliography, incorporating from now on all the new bibliographical information that in the past had been published annually in the American Dante Bibliography;
• a fully bilingual (English and Italian) interface for the collaborative International Dante Bibliography;
• an advanced search function in the collaborative International Dante Bibliography that allows searching by subject and topic, as well as by author and title, and permits users to select records of particular interest and download them (features that have not been available to users of the free-standing American Dante Bibliography);
• a separately published version of the American Dante Bibliography, through the DSA website, that will contain North American materials only, thus conserving our tradition of signaling the contributions of American dantisti to international Dante Studies.

As a result, North American contributions to the study of Dante will have significantly increased international visibility, while members and friends of the DSA will have easy, English-language access to publications produced in Italy and throughout the world.

Both Societies conceive this partnership as the beginning of a renewed phase of collaboration to foster productive exchanges between North American and European scholars and students of Dante.

The bibliographical activities of the DSA are supervised by a committee of four individuals appointed by the President:

• Alison Cornish, DSA Bibliographer and Committee Chair
• Elisa Brilli, Coordinator of the implementation of the new Partnership, and DSA Liaison to the SDI
• Danielle Callegari, Compiler of the American Dante Bibliography for 2015
• Christian Dupont, Secretary-Librarian of the DSA (ex officio)

Questions about the Partnership and the SDI/DSA bibliographical collaboration should be directed to the following dedicated email address: danteannualbibl@gmail.com.

Recommendations for publications to be included in the Bibliography may be sent to this address, as may inquiries about details of the Partnership arrangement. We are also seeking volunteers with the skills necessary to assist, now and in the future, in the production of the bibliography (these skills include collection of bibliographical citations, data entry, translation from Italian to English, and so on).

Dante Society of America president Albert Russell Ascoli signs the bibliographical partnership agreement while Società Dantesca Italiana president Marcello Ciccuto looks on. Photos taken at the headquarters of the Società Dantesca Italiana in Florence, Italy, 23 March 2017.