Old books online
Archived article from Dec 14, 2001
By Douglas Frank
Undergraduates are delving into some of the earliest books printed in England using Early English Books Online (EEBO), acquired last year by the Rutgers University Libraries.
History Professor Rudy Bell, who has taught and written about early advice manuals, was among the faculty asked by the libraries to evaluate the utility of EEBO. During the process, he suggested the database could be useful for undergraduates as well as for graduate students and faculty researchers.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) is supported by a consortium of research institutions that includes Rutgers. Like its microfilm predecessor, EEBO reproduces approximately 120,000 titles dating to the 15th century, accessible by author, title, subject and publication date.
The database is being used by the students in a Faculty of Arts and Sciences-New Brunswick honors seminar on popular culture and the print revolution in early modern Europe. The seminar is taught by Bell and supported by the history department, the Scholarly Communications Center of Alexander Library and the Teaching Excellence Center.
Focusing on advice manuals, the course has completed the second of three semesters. It will be offered again in 2002-2003. To assist students, Ron Jantz of the Scholarly Communications Center developed E-AMOR (English Advice Manuals Online at Rutgers), a compilation of such tracts from the EEBO database dating from 1475 to 1700.
Last year eight students took the seminar and this year, Bell reports, there were 14. "They have to do a major research paper, so it's a heavy challenge," he says. Student topics ranged from books on self-taught accounting to manuals on keeping horses.
Bell has hosted conferences on the project, which attracted significant interest from academe, he says. "People have come from all over the country to see how undergraduates successfully undertake advanced research work based on some very rare books, all from RUNet computer terminals in Piscataway and New Brunswick."
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