Early modern studies: Ebooks
It's been a while since I posted here. I did a lot of travelling in 2023, there are other projects I'm working on, and suddenly I find it's been months since I last posted. It's not that I haven't been working on the early modern period. Last summer, I was back in the University Library…
Early Modern Digital Humanities
I've added a page to my website giving details of some of the main online databases and resources for the early modern period. Click here: Early modern digital humanities. I'm sure there are many useful resources I haven't added, so please let me know if there's anything you feel should be included.…
Digitizing Early Modern Suffering
I finally splashed out on a CZUR overhead scanner, which I picked up at a substantial discount from the regular market price. I strongly recommend anyyone to get one of these. Forget that dishwasher you were saving up for, or the new hairdryer you've been promising yourself; for real consumer satori nothing beats an overhead…
Rejoice! for eebo tcp phase 2 is now in the public domain
Here it is! Something tangible and irrefutable, something that makes 2021 better than 2020 (not that that would be hard!), something to cheer the spirit and warm the cocckles of the heart. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership Phase 2 is now in the public domain, bringing 60,331 early modern works in text-searchable form…
The OED and EEBO TCP
Last Christmas, a friend who happens to be an antiquarian bookseller posted on Facebook an image of what he took to be the first recorded instance of the expression "merry Christmas" in print. The book in question was An Itinerary VVritten by Fynes Moryson Gent (1617). A basic search on the Early English Books Online…
Digital humanities links
A downloadable list of some of the most useful digital sources I've come across so far. Click here.…
Damned if we do! Using the EEBO TCP Database
Can we use the EEBO TCP database? This looks like a no-brainer - what would be the use of the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership if we can't use it? - but it's actually something of a minefield. How often, I wonder, has work citing the database been met with a response like…
Using the Early English Books Online and Text Creation Partnership Databases
(This post contains the substance of a presentation I gave at the Annual Conference of the Shakespeare Society of Japan in October, 2014.) For those who are not familiar, here is an introduction to the use of the Early English Books Online database (EEBO): EEBO requires a log-in, but many - if not most -…
Researching the Seventeenth Century Online: Tools of the Trade
[I posted this in 2014, but since so much of the EEBO TCP database came into the public domain in January 2015 I thought it worth updating.] For those who come to this blog from academia, this is probably a post you can skip, but for people in other walks of life I thought it…
EEBO TCP Conference, 2013 (Oxford)
At the time of writing I am sitting in the back row of a lecture room in Oxford at a conference of the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO TCP). Follow on Twitter: #eebotcp. The Text Creation Partnership is a text-searchable database developed from the Early English Books Online database, making it possible…