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How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA)

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This guide to using EBBA was one of several guides written for students by students working under the supervision of Dr. Kristen A. Bennett. These how to resources for conducting digital, archival, and worldwide library research across topics in early modern English literature were created by undergraduate students in the Spring 2014, ENG 304 class, Subversion and Scandal in Early Modern Print Culture with the help of the Faculty Initiatives in Technology grant at Stonehill College. Dr. Bennett and her students kindly gave MoEML permission to republish their guides. Click here for guides to Early English Books Online, the Folger Digital Image Collection, Project Gutenberg, and the Internet Shakespeare Editions. To see the guides in their original context, along with other materials, visit the English 304 blog.

About EBBA

The English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA) was created in 2003 by director Patricia Fumerton. She was interested in developing a digital tool that would make broadside ballads1 more accessible to researchers. EBBA provides access to approximately ten thousand ballads, most of which were published during the seventeenth-century. Although EBBA prioritizes the black-letter ornamental broadside ballad, EBBA also archives hundreds of other texts from the sixteenth-century and early eighteenth-century as well. EBBA delivers high-quality ballad sheet facsimiles and transcriptions.2
Dr. Patricia Fumerton. Image Courtesy of UCSB.
Dr. Patricia Fumerton. Image Courtesy of UCSB.

How to Navigate EBBA

EBBA is an open-source website, meaning that it can be accessed by anyone on any computer. To access EBBA, enter the URL http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ into your web browser. The folllowing instructions describe how to navigate EBBA, emphasizing sections and features that may be of interest to students.

1. Features

  • Under the features column, there are five subcategories to explore: images, transcriptions, recordings, cataloguing, and TEI-XML.
  • Each of these subcategories offers an in depth analysis of EBBA’s methodology for their ballad archive.

2. Search

  • There is a text box in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage labeled ballad search.
  • Enter your search keyword(s) in the text box and press search to see your search results.
  • You will be directed to a new page that lists every entry that matches your search keyword(s). For each entry, you will be able to preview the title of the ballad, the year of its publication, and a thumbnail image of the ballad.
Screen capture of the EBBA advanced search page.
Screen capture of the EBBA advanced search page.
Screen capture of a ballad in EBBA.
Screen capture of a ballad in EBBA.

3. Advanced Search

  • EBBA also offers an advanced search, which allows for more precise searches.
  • To be directed to the advanced search form, click on the advanced search link underneath ballad search on the homepage.
  • On the advanced search page, there are options to search by title, first lines, author, date, printer/publisher, collection, volume, and other search keywords.

4. Individual Entries

  • Click on an individual entry in the search results to see more information about that entry.
  • There are a number of tabs associated with each individual entry. The album facsimile, ballad sheet facsimile, and facsimile transcription tabs offer different images of the broadside ballad. When looking at these images, use the image manipulation toolbar (lower left-hand side of the webpage) to zoom in, zoom out, or view a full-size version of the image.
  • The citation tab offers a complete bibliographic description of the ballad, including information about titles, subtitles, the author, year of publication, publisher information, location of the ballad, ballad collection, etc.
  • The text transcription tab offers a diplomatic transcription of the ballad.
  • Some entries will have a recording tab. Click on this tab to hear a recording of the ballad, set to its original tune.

Notes

  1. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the term broadside ballad referred to a popular poem, often set to the tune of a melody, that was printed on a single, large sheet of paper with multiple illustrations and an interesting title. To learn more about broadside ballads, see the features tab in EBBA. ()↑
  2. A facsimile transcription is something that maintains the original decoration of the text while still transforming the ballad into readable modern day language. ()↑

Cite this page

MLA citation

Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students. How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA). The Map of Early Modern London, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 26 Jun. 2020, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm.

Chicago citation

Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students. How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA). The Map of Early Modern London. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm.

APA citation

Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students. 2020. How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA). In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London. Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm.

RIS file (for RefMan, EndNote etc.)

Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

TY  - ELEC
A1  - Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students
ED  - Jenstad, Janelle
T1  - How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA)
T2  - The Map of Early Modern London
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/06/26
CY  - Victoria
PB  - University of Victoria
LA  - English
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/xml/standalone/EBBA_guide.xml
ER  -

RefWorks

RT Web Page
SR Electronic(1)
A1 Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students
A6 Jenstad, Janelle
T1 How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA)
T2 The Map of Early Modern London
WP 2020
FD 2020/06/26
RD 2020/06/26
PP Victoria
PB University of Victoria
LA English
OL English
LK https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm

TEI citation

<bibl type="mla"><author><name ref="#STON5" type="org">Stonehill College English 304 Spring 2014 Students</name></author>. <title level="a">How to Use the English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA)</title>. <title level="m">The Map of Early Modern London</title>, edited by <editor><name ref="#JENS1"><forename>Janelle</forename> <surname>Jenstad</surname></name></editor>, <publisher>U of Victoria</publisher>, <date when="2020-06-26">26 Jun. 2020</date>, <ref target="https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm">mapoflondon.uvic.ca/EBBA_guide.htm</ref>.</bibl>

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