The Icelandic Immigrant Literacy Database (IILD) containing data on Icelandic immigrants’ manuscripts, letters, documents, and libraries in North America has been launched by the Árni Magnússon Institute at this website vesturheimur.arnastofnun.is. The database provides unique digital access to the general public to hundreds of historical written objects owned and created by Icelandic-Canadians and -Americans. Information on the people involved can be accessed as well as the places mentioned in the manuscripts.
The database is the product of project launched by the Árni Magnússon Institute called in the footsteps of Árni Magnússon in the New World to find manuscripts and letters by Icelandic immigrants in museums in Canada and the United States or privately owned. The project manager, Katelin Marit Parsons, adjunct lecturer of Icelandic at the University of Iceland, is also the editor of the Icelandic Immigrant Literacy Database. Katelin completed her doctoral degree in Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland's Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies in 2020. Five students at the University of Iceland's School of Humanities have worked on the project under her supervision: Brynjarr Þór Eyjólfsson, MA in Comparative Literature; Guðrún Brjánsdóttir, MA in Icelandic studies; Michael John Macpherson, doctoral student in Icelandic Linguistics and Ryan Eric Johnson and Ólafur Arnar Sveinsson, doctoral students in history.
