Individual Article:
Access to more than 150,000 books published during the eighteenth century in Great Britain and its colonies
Northwestern University Library now offers complete online access to the searchable text and page images of more than 150,000 books published in Great Britain and its colonies during the 18th century -- a total of 33 million pages in all. The Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO) can be searched for names both famous and obscure ("Benjamin Franklin" or "James Oglethorpe"), important places ("Brandywine"), or commodities, issues, or important themes of the century ("tobacco," "revolution," or "slavery"). Results can be sorted and filtered in a number of interesting ways. Occurrences of searched words are then highlighted in yellow on an online facsimile of each page, making them verifiable without having to go to microfilm or to consult the original printed work. Currently, access is available only through the Library's Electronic Resources Finder (search for "ECCO") or by going directly to the resource link.
Please note that currently (February 2004) only about 50 percent of the entire database is loaded, sorted into discipline groups, i.e. History and Geography, Fine Arts, Social Sciences, Medicine, Science and Technology. Other major sections, including Language and Literature, go online in April of this year. By year end, Northwestern plans to provide access to each individual title in ECCO from the Library's online catalog, NUcat. A link will take users directly from the title entry in the OPAC to the work itself.