Database
Access
The ECEG-database was released in December 2010. Some sample images are displayed at the bottom of this page.
ECEG is available in free electronic format for research and educational purposes. Please complete the access request form and return it via e-mail to Nuria Yáñez-Bouza and María Rodríguez-Gil. Click here to download the form in a Word document.
Signed-up users will click here to enter the database. We kindly ask users to acknowledge the database in any published work that makes use of it; copyright is retained by Nuria Yáñez-Bouza and María Rodríguez-Gil (© 2010).
The contents of the database are available via two interfaces: Browse layout and Search layout. In addition, search results can be downloaded to the user's computer too. Guidelines are provided in this handout.
NB. For technical reasons, users are advised to access the database with the Firefox browser rather than Internet Explorer. Firefox is free to download from here. If Internet Explorer is preferred, the recommended version is IE8.
Browse Layout
(Check out Figure 1 and Figure 2)
The records (~entries) in the Browse layout are chronologically sorted, so that record 1 dates from 1700 and record 323 dates from 1800. Users can browse record by record, or jump to a particular record by clicking on the hyperlink and entering a number in the pop-up window.
The contents of each record are displayed in two sections:
- top row, which is always visible, and
- six clickable tabs, visible one at a time
Fields are arranged as below. An asterisk indicates that a drop-down value list is not available for that particular (sub-)field in the Search layout. (See here for a detailed description of each field)
- Top row:
- Year
- Edition
- Title*
- Author:
- Name
- Gender
- Place of birth (Country, County, City)
- Occupation (Category, Description*)
- Biographic details*
- Contents:
- Type of work
- Divisions of grammar
- Subsidiary contents
- Target audience (Age, Gender, Instruction, Specific Purpose)
- Imprint:
- Place of printing (Country, County, City)
- Printers*
- Booksellers*
- Price
- Physical description
- Editions:
- Number
- Place
- Description*
- References:
- Reference sources
- Holding library
- Comments
- Comments*
Search
(Check out Figure 3 and Figure 4)
To search the database, click on Enter Search Criteria at the top of the page in the Browse layout.
The structure of the Search layout will mirror the Browse layout described above. Simply enter the search criteria into the boxes provided for each field. Users can search a maximum of 10 fields at a time--any 10 fields. A drop-down value list will appear in some fields giving sample values that can be searched for; a 'null' value is also available. (Some tips about operators are provided in the Show Search HELP tool.)
For combined searches (X and Y in the same record), the formula is =X&=Y
For instance, =Religion&=Education in the field 'Occupation' will show all authors whose occupation had something to do with religion AND education.
For multiple searches (either X or Y), the formula is X|Y
For instance, Scotland|England in the field 'Place of Birth' will show authors who were born either in Scotland or in England.
The number of hits ('search results') will display on the top-right of the page (e.g. 11 records). To view the records, click on Browse Search Results on the menu at the top of the page. Users may download data by clicking on Configure Download from the top menu. The downloadable file can be saved as .cvs or .xls (Excel) format. (See Figure 5)
To start a new search, simply click on Clear Search Criteria from the menu at the top of the Search layout. To view the database in full again, click on Return to Browse All.
If you have any queries, do not hesitate to contact us.
Images (as at September 2011)
Figure 1. Browse layout, tab 'Author' displaying
Figure 2. Browse layout, tab 'Contents' displaying
Figure 3. Search layout, tab 'Imprint' displaying
Figure 4. Search layout, tab 'Imprint' displaying with search criteria entered
Figure 5. Configure Download
