The manuscript collection of the National and University Library of Iceland contains about 15,000 manuscripts, and information on 13,747 of them is included in the collection catalog, which were published between 1918 and 1996. Recent research has shown, however, that the role of women has been poorly documented there, whether as owners of manuscripts, scribes, or otherwise. This under-recording of women's role in manuscript culture has hindered research on women's manuscripts and has given a distorted picture of the position of women within the collection.

In the summer of 2020, Arnheiður Steinþórsdóttir worked on the project Women's Manuscripts Highlighted. Analysis and cataloging of Women's Manuscripts in the National Library of Iceland – University Library 1600-1900, which received a grant from the Student Innovation Fund. The project involved cataloging women and manuscripts related to them in the electronic database handrit.is with the aim of making the role of women in manuscript culture more visible and thus contributing to increased research in that field. The outcome of the project was, among other things, that 318 women were added to the website's list of names, while Arnheiður cataloged or improved the registration of 250 manuscripts.

The exhibition features a selection of the manuscripts that Arnheiður recorded this summer. The selection of manuscripts on display here is intended to shed light on the diverse role of women in Icelandic manuscript culture. Here are manuscripts written by or for women, manuscripts marked by women, manuscripts written up based on women's oral histories, and much more. It is worth noting that some of these manuscripts have been photographed and the images of them are available at handrit.is.