[1][2] Gale, an education publishing company in the United States, assembled the collection by digitally scanning microfilm reproductions of 136,291 titles.
[1][3] Documents scanned after 2002 are added to a second collection, ECCO II.
[7] Their aim is to enable improved access to a fraction of the collection: they are making SGML/XML text editions for 10,000 books.
[8] In addition to the free version, subscription access is also offered.
[10] Cross-search is also available from ProQuest for those who subscribe to both Early English Books Online and ECCO.