The Anatomy of Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)

In less than two decades, Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) has become the primary digital source for the study of printed eighteenth-century texts in the English language. 2 Its relevance to research on the history of literature, however, goes well beyond eighteenth-century studies. Soon after its launch ECCO was called revolutionary, something that every self-respecting university must have. Hopes were high that it would change the ways in which eighteenth-century scholars are able to reveal cultural trends, followed, of course, by more skeptical voices noting, among other things, its hefty price tag. We want to change this. The main aim of this paper is to offer an account of the anatomy of ECCO: what is missing, what are the imbalances, and how representative it is with respect to its source catalog. We use the metaphor of