Review: Proquest History Study Center
Review: Proquest History Study Center (PDF; 170 KB)
History Study Center Review Scores Composite: *** 7/8
The maximum number of stars in each category is 5.
Content: **** HSC’s strength is the richness, depth, and diversity of its content. It is not rated a “5″ (highest) because it does slant towards British and North American content; though, since it’s from Chadwyck-Healey, one could hardly expect otherwise. Additional earlier journal content would further enrich the product. HSC includes some video, image, and audio content, but it could be improved with more multimedia as well. Web links are excellent.
Searchability: **** Most users will find the Basic and Advanced (including Boolean) search functions easy and intuitive to use. The search Help files are good but could be improved and updated.
Pricing Options: *** 1/2 Though flexible pricing is available, and $6K for a small academic library sounds reasonable, the pricing model seems higher than it should be given that most of the content is preexisting and previously published. Customers are not notified of updates as they occur, which makes the product seem more static than it really is. Offering consortia pricing is a plus.
Contract Options: ****
Source: The Charleston Advisor (via author, DrWeb)