Catholic Historical Research Initiative at Boston College Libraries
In keeping with its motto of “Value Beyond Discovery,” Boston College Libraries is pleased to offer diverse research opportunities to encourage widespread engagement with Catholic content at Boston College and beyond. This programming intends to facilitate collaboration between institutions and scholars and to promote scholarship on the Catholic Church.
Programs & Opportunities
Catholic Religious Archives
Preserving and making accessible records religious orders and congregations
Online Initiatives
Fostering innovation and of collaboration with Catholic source materials
On-Campus Libraries
Offering value beyond discovery to a robust collection of Catholic resources
Events
Providing unique settings at Boston College and online for the advancement of scholarly inquiry
Program Highlight: Catholic Almanacs Project
With guidance from BC Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Group, BC students are contributing to a pilot project that involves extracting data from nineteenth-century Catholic almanacs published in the United States. They have learned XML coding to convert the almanac’s information on institutions, priests, and women religious into data points for later use in maps and visualizations (learn more).
An almanac page juxtaposed with an encoded version of the text. The encoding organizes and structures the text into data points.
The interactive map being created with the alamanac data.
Program Highlight: Program Highlight: Catholic Historical Research Anthology
Launched and managed by BC Libraries’ Digital Production Department, the Catholic Historical Research Anthology, is an open-access, curated, and growing compilation of newspapers, journals, and books to facilitate the study and understanding of the Catholic Church. Initial titles complement the archival collections at the Catholic Religious Archives at Boston College, and, with time, publications will also include the histories of the institutions, people, and religious congregations identified in the almanac project.
Program Highlight: Interactive Catholic Artifacts Collection
The Digital Scholarship Group has also begun scanning religious artifacts housed at the Catholic Religious Archive and elsewhere at Boston College. The collection of 3D models will allow users to observe the physicality of the object in greater detail through digital means.
Monk statuette carved of ivory, part of the collection of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa
Coif Iron, a specialized hand-iron designed to shape a nun’s coif, or headpiece