EEBO, Microfilm, and Umberto Eco: Historical Lessons and Future Directions for Building Electronic Collections

In an age of mass digitization with book scanning projects like Google and Microsoft and their open access rival, the Open Archives Initiative, it is easy to forget that this is not the first time such efforts to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" have been attempted. In 1926, A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave compiled A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English books printed abroad, 1475-1640 which at that time was the most comprehensive bibliography of English printed material in the early modern period. That project later developed into Early English Books (EEB), a microfilm project started by University Microfilms International (UMI), and an electronic database Early English Books Online (EEBO) produced by ProQuest Information and Learning.