Georgia State
students and faculty have exciting new opportunities to read British historical
documents – without having to travel to the overseas archives that contain the
originals. The University Library has purchased access to two new databases that
between them contain nearly a quarter of a million titles published in Britain and
elsewhere between 1473 and 1800.
“I use both and so do all my
students,” said Murray Brown, associate professor of English. “In a seminar
setting, I could assign different texts to everyone in the class - texts that
may not have been in print for a very long while. This kind of access would be impossible
without the database. It’s like having the British Museum
on one’s desktop.”
The databases have some special
features. First, they contain digital scans of every document included, which
means that researchers can look not only at the words but also at maps,
illustrations, and satirical cartoons. Second, both can be searched digitally
for specific words or phrases, which should greatly reduce the time it takes
for researchers to find relevant material. The two new collections are:
Eighteenth Century Collections Online, or ECCO, includes every
significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Britain
between 1701 and 1800, and thousands of important American works from the same
period. The collection includes books, pamphlets and broadsides, and important
resources on women writers and the French Revolution. In all, 138,000 works
running to 26 million pages are included.
Early English Books Online, or EEBO, contains facsimiles of
virtually every work printed in England,
Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North American
printed between 1473 and 1700. The collection begins with the first book
printed in English by William Caxton, and includes more than 100,000 titles.
The database purchase was funded partly by a grant to the library from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and partly through the support of the
university provost’s office.
“Having access to a resource of
this magnitude is a huge boost to both faculty and graduate student research,”
said Jacob Selwood, an assistant professor of history who wrote the original
proposal for the library’s EEBO purchase. “It’s also an amazing teaching tool,
allowing undergraduates to get a sense for themselves of the wonderful range of
early modern printed materials, everything from almanacs and news books to
accounts of witch trials and overseas travel.”
