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How (and why) to search EEBO: the Early English Books Online database
getting started
Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images from over 146,000 books that were printed in the British Isles and North America between 1470 and 1700. This is a fascinating period in political, religious, and intellectual history, stretching from the advent of the printing press to the English Civil War. Many of the works are original to the period, while others are older works published for "modern" readers -- providing a window into which works of Origen, Augustine, etc. were available in sixteenth-century book markets.
Access EEBO by searching the Duke Library catalog for the database (use EEBO or Early English Books Online as your search terms), or by using this direct link.
Basic search tips
The default option on the EEBO landing page is a "basic search." Any search terms you enter (sacrament, Shakespeare, etc.) will be treated as keywords.
- You can add quotation marks to search for an exact phrase ("Anselm of Canterbury")
- You can add NEAR to find records where two words are separated by 4 or fewer words. For example, anselm NEAR canterbury will return results for Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, the holy archbishop of Canterbury St. Anselm, etc.
- EEBO will automatically search for variants of your keywords, so spellings such as Anselme and Canterburie will be included as well. (However, adding quotation marks around a word or phrase will exclude variant spellings.)
Advanced search tips
Specialized searches such as for commentaries and sermons on particular biblical passages are best conducted from the Advanced Search page. This page gives you options to combine multiple search terms, or specify where in a document you want to search for your keyword (e.g., author's name, document title).
To find publications that focus on a particular biblical passage, use the "Subject heading (all):" search bar. Enter your passage by writing out the book title (Genesis) and including the chapter in Roman numerals (xxii). If you wish to specify a verse or range of verses, use Arabic numerals (14).
Examples:
- Genesis xxii
- Matthew xxviii
- Romans xii, 2
Navigating your results
When you find a text you wish to engage further, note that there may be a number of formats available to you.
- Full text (not available for every book) will offer a transcription of the book's contents, compatible with copy-paste functions, screen readers, etc. Variant spellings will be preserved as they appear in the original text.
- Image full text will open the scanned pages in an image viewer, letting you view individual pages as they would have appeared in the printed book.
- PDF full text will open the scanned pages as a downloadable PDF.
Still have questions?
If you are having trouble accessing EEBO from off-campus, see our suggestions for off-campus access to library resources.
You can also check out ProQuest's full guide to searching EEBO here: https://proquest.libguides.com/eebopqp
For additional resources and strategies to help you research the history of biblical interpretation, see our full research guide on Biblical Commentary from Historic Sources.