Composite Score:
★★★★
R
eviewed by: Janice G. Schuster
Phillips Memorial Library
P
rovidence College
549 River Ave.
Providence, RI 02918
<jschustr@providence.edu>
24 Advisor Reviews / The Charleston Advisor / January 2007 www.charlestonco.com
Pricing Options
Pricing is for a one-time purchase of the online edition. There is an
annual maintenance fee of $100. Access for “precollege” institutions
costs $1,500. For public libraries, pricing is based on size of popula-
tion served, ranging from $1,500 for under 100,000 served to $5,000
for up to 1 million served. For colleges, pricing is based on FTE, includ-
ing $2,400 for under 5,000 FTE (small); $4,300.00 for 5,000–10,000
FTE (medium); large institutions (10,000+ FTE) need to contact
<hsus@cambridge.org> for a price quote. Corporations and govern-
ment/individuals pay $3,300 and $1,750, respectively, for a single site.
The five-volume print set is also available with the online edition; con-
tact <hsus@cambridge.org> for details.
A negative aspect of the pricing structure is that the FTE includes fac-
ulty, undergraduate, and graduate students. In my experience, few ven-
dors include all those categories in the FTE count. It is more common
to include only FTE students, not faculty. In my library’s case, includ-
ing all of those categories still would keep us in the “small” category,
but for other libraries, the addition of the faculty count might increase
them unfairly into the “medium” category.
Product Description
The last edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States was
published by the Census Bureau in 1975. When the Census Bureau
decided, in the early 1990s, that it would not publish a new edition of
Historical Statistics, a team of renowned social scientists came together
with Cambridge University Press to create a new edition. More than
200 of the nation’s leading economists, historians, political scientists,
sociologists, and other scholars contributed to the millennial edition of
Historical Statistics. This new edition adds thirty years of data and con-
tains coverage of topics that received little or no coverage in the 1975
edition: American Indians, slavery, poverty, race, and ethnicity.
The electronic edition has been designed to give users a variety of
means to search and navigate the vast amount of data in the Historical
Statistics. Users will be able to graph individual tables or to combine
data from different tables into “custom tables” and download tables
for use in spreadsheets and other applications.
Critical Evaluation
Search Interface: The database’s home page is straightforward, with
clear buttons for an introduction to HSUS, table of contents, a tour of
the site, and trial request. One oddity of the home page is under “About
HSUS.”
There is no information about the database itself: what it is,
what it contains, etc. Instead, the information under that heading
includes downloading options and other features of the database. One
would expect to find more background information about the database
itself on the home page. A button leads to further information, but it
seems that the downloading and other details should require a click
and a summary of the database should be directly on the home page.
There are clear navigation tabs for Contents, Indexes, Search, and
Favorites at the top of the home page screen. The system defaults to
showing the entries under the Contents tab. The Indexes tab reveals a
searchable A-Z index, browseable index terms, and a box to search
each individual section: Part A: Population; Part B: Work and Welfare;
Part C: Economic Structure and Performance; Part D: Economic
Sectors; and Part E: Governance and International Relations. Clicking
on the link to each part reveals a list of the chapters included in that
part. The Search tab reveals a general search box, used to search all
chapters at once, as well as a search by page number. The Favorites
tab shows saved data and includes a link to instructions for saving data.
Searching: The search screen itself is clear, but some of the search
instructions are worded unclearly. For example, under the main search
box: “Entering two terms will search for both terms, not for either term.
To search for one term or the other term, enter an ‘or’ between the
search terms.” This might be clear to librarians (although I had to read
it a few times before it was clear to me that the first sentence means
that there is an understood Boolean AND, and the second sentence
means that, to do a Boolean OR search, one must add the OR), but I
am sure that my library’s patrons will not know what it means. Another
example of a poorly worded instruction appears under Search tips:
“Require a word to match by placing a + in front of it (Example: +area
+population); exclude a word match by placing a – in front of it
(Example: +area –population).” When I clicked on “More” searching
tips and read the explanation of a NOT
search, I realized that the – indi
-
cates a Boolean NOT.
I tried searching for various topics. Using the Search tab (i.e., basic
search), I searched for “Immigrant Orphans,” which revealed four hits.
The database did not allow me to view the tables in PDF format, I
assume due to the trial status, but I was able to view them as HTML.
Results Display: When I clicked on the title link for the first hit, the
table displayed nicely. The table numbers (i.e., Ad977, Ad978, etc.)
are the column headings.
When I scrolled down in the table, the col-
umn headings did not follow the scrolling, which made it a bit dif
fi
-
cult to read after the first screen. There are options for “Graph,”
“Download in Excel,” “PDF <size of file>,” “Print,” “Save Data,”
“Email
T
able,” “Custom
Tables,” and “View Selected Series.” I tried
all of the options. The “Graph” option requires two screens of user
responses before the graph appears (but it was easy to choose the
defaults). However, I could not get the graph to appear. The system
▼
ADVISOR REVIEWS—STANDARD REVIEW
Historical Statistics of the United States,
Millennial Edition
Date of Review: November 21, 2006
The Charleston Advisor / January 2007 www.charlestonco.com 25
kept asking me to relabel the axes, which I did, but I never saw the
graph, again possibly due to limitations of the trial. Downloading to a
spreadsheet worked much better. After entering a few responses, I was
able to view not only the spreadsheet itself but also the documentation,
which gave definitions of the terms used etc. This would be very use-
ful to researchers. Printing works as expected, printing the table up to
30 lines. The directions recommend printing the PDF version if one
needs to print the entire table. I like the Save Data feature a lot. I was
able to easily save my table to my Favorites tab, allowing me to go
back and retrieve the same table in the future without having to re-exe-
cute the search. The E-Mail option worked easily. However, when I
went to the test message I sent myself, with the table on immigrant
orphans, the link included in the message failed to open the table within
the database. It was not able to open the HSUS database site at all.
Custom Tables also is a great feature. From the instructions link:
If you want to compare series from different tables, you can easily
do so by creating a custom table that includes all of the series you
want to compare. This will allow you to view the data on one screen,
and to graph series from dif
ferent tables on the same grid.
Y
ou will
find the options related to creating and adding to custom tables in
the Tables tab; you can access a list of the custom tables you have
created through the Favorites tab as well.
Contract Provisions
The licensing agreement is standard. One good feature of the agree
-
ment is its clear definitions of terms at the beginning of the agreement.
If an institution terminates the license (i.e., no longer pays the annual
access fee), a clause allows the licensee to receive the full contents of
the database in Word and Excel files, without functionality or program-
ming. The licensing agreement also explicitly allows “the distribution
of a copy for teaching purposes to each individual student
Authorized
User in a class at the Licensee’s institution(s).” Also, a specific clause
allows users to incorporate parts of the database into course packs and
electronic reserves. In the current climate of concern regarding copy
-
right, these clauses are welcome. Interlibrary loan use is prohibited.
The agreement is governed by the laws of the state of New
Y
ork; the
general counsel at my institution would require changing that to Rhode
Island or deleting it altogether.
Authentication
Access is by IP authentication with unlimited simultaneous users.
Author’s Selected References
About the Millennial Edition Online
Samuelson, Robert J. “Our History by the Numbers.” Newsweek 147,
no. 4 (January 23, 2006): 33.
Civil Engineering (April 2006): 73.
LaGuardia, Cheryl. “Statistically Speaking.”
Library Journal
(September 1, 2006): 28.
About the Print Edition
Reference and User Services Quarterly 45, no. 4 (Summer 2006):
345–346.
About the Author
J
anice G
. Schuster
has been the Coordinator of Reference Services
and Reference Librarian at Providence College in Providence, Rhode
Island, since 1991. Her primary responsibilities include reference, man-
aging the library’
s electronic resources, overseeing development of the
reference collection, library instruction, and serving as library liaison
to seven academic departments and programs. She previously served
as Head of Reference at Stonehill College and Reference/Circulation
Librarian at the University of South Carolina-Coastal Carolina College
(currently Coastal Carolina University). She holds B.A. and M.L.S.
degrees from Indiana University-Bloomington. ■
Historical Statistics of the United States, Millenial Edition
Review Scores Composite:
★★★★
The maximum number of stars in each category is 5.
Content:
★★★★★
The addition of topics not covered in the previous government edition, such as American Indians, slavery, poverty, race, and
ethnicity, is especially welcome.
Searchability:
★★
Cambridge should improve the unclear searching directions.
Pricing Options:
★★★★
The FTE pricing structure should include only FTE students not faculty.
Contract Options:
★★★★★
This is a model licensing agreement.
Contact Information
Histor
ical Statistics of the United States,
Millennial Edition
32 Avenue of the Americas
New
Y
ork, NY
10013
Phone:
212.337.5082
Fax: 212.691.3239
E-mail:
<tbraunstein@cambridge.or
g>
URL: <www.cambridge.org/us/libraries>