InfoTech: Two Gale and ProQuest Databases Linking in ‘08

by Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 11/12/2007

Reference Goliaths ProQuest and Gale have announced an electronic bridge between two of their databases on early modern English books, which the duo claims are used by more than 200 universities worldwide. “In 2008,” the companies said, “a search in ProQuest’s Early English Books Online (EEBO) also will provide bibliographic search results from Gale’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) for mutual subscribers, and vice versa. EEBO and ECCO are digital collections of nearly every printed work from the late 15th through the 18th centuries, and are considered to be among the world’s most valued research collections. The agreement will streamline serious research in literature, humanities, history and a variety of cultural studies.”

ProQuest said that EEBO includes more than 100,000 literary and historic works from 1475 to 1700. Its author list includes Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, William Congreve, and Thomas D’Urfey. The database also includes musical exercises by Henry Purcell, novels by Aphra Behn, and prayer books, pamphlets, proclamations, almanacs, calendars, and other primary resources.

ECCO captures more than 28 million pages of books, dictionaries, directories, Bibles, sheet music, and sermons—almost everything printed in England between 1700 and 1800. ECCO’s more than 120,000 books contain the seminal works of the Enlightenment, the documents that surrounded the American and French revolutionary causes, and landmark writings of scientific, technological, and medical discoveries from the Age of Reason. All the works are fully text searchable, and include high resolution images and bibliographic metadata.