U-M partners to make 25,000 early English books open to the public | University of Michigan News

"The texts of the first printed editions of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton as well as lesser-known titles from the early modern era can now be freely read by anyone with an Internet connection. The University of Michigan Library, the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and ProQuest have made public more than 25,000 manually transcribed texts from the first 200 years of the printed book (1473–1700). These texts, including more than 5,600 from U-M, represent a significant portion of the estimated total output of English-language work published during the first two centuries of printing in England. The release (via Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication) marks the completion of the first phase in the Early English Books Online-Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP). An anticipated 40,000 additional texts are planned for release into the public domain by the end of the decade. What's Available? ..."