Internet Resources: September 2020 Edition

Selected reviews of digital reference resources from the September issue of Choice.

Posted on September 3, 2020 in Internet Resources

Indiastat. Datanet India Pvt. Ltd. Contact publisher for pricing.
indiastat.com

“Indiastat aggregates socioeconomic statistical data about India from 2000 to the present,” which is “browsable by economic sector, state, and region,” wrote Michael Rodriguez for ccAdvisor. This data will be valuable for “researchers of all types seeking recent socioeconomic statistics on India,” he added. Moreover, the data are comprehensive and unique, and most are only globally accessible through Indiasat. However, despite an overall functional user experience, “the site’s user interface is old-fashioned and searchability is basic,” relying on a single search box that “does not support [the] use of Boolean operators, truncation, exact phrases, or other search types,” nor “does it offer mechanisms to filter or organize search results,” Rodriguez elaborated. Instead, he found that “the most reliable way to find sought-after data is by navigating the site” (though even this can be cumbersome), primarily through the infoboxes on the right-hand sidebar of the home page. These boxes highlight “economic news and events, key economic indicators, prominent libraries that subscribe to Indiastat, infographics, the India versus World ‘Estimated Population’ counter, and other features,” as Rodriguez detailed. “After selecting an economic sector, visitors can drill down into the data by data point or subcategory … and at the national or state/territory level.” The undeniable value of this content may trump concerns of the unwieldy interface and poor searchability for institutions with specialized academic programs, though it is important to note possible alternatives for potentially less specialized users. Though not as country-specific or in-depth as Indiastat, both the UN and World Bank websites provide extensive data about India, and the University of Chicago’s Digital South Asia Library provides abstracts on colonial India. Additionally, the Indian government provides vast amounts of free demographic and economic data online. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

This review is a summary of a longer review by Michael Rodriguez, University of Connecticut, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2019 by The Charleston Company.

Sex & Sexuality Module I: Research Collections from the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections. Adam Matthew Contact publisher for pricing.
amdigital.co.uk/primary-sources/sex-and-sexuality

With resources “obtained exclusively from the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections,” Module I of Sex & Sexuality explores “‘changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the [20th] century,’” wrote Dawn Behrend for ccAdvisor. “The collection currently includes 11,743 unique items,” encompassing correspondence, newspapers, research briefs, and similar content. These sources cover topics spanning gender identity, sexual behavior, sexual health, sexual preference, and general views on sex, reproduction, and relationships, and can be searched by key word using the main search box on the home page. Selecting Advanced Search on the home page also allows users to search by “title, people, or places, using Boolean terms, word stemming, or proximity.” A notable search feature is the handwritten text recognition (HTR) capability, allowing for key word searching of handwritten documents, which is useful, but imperfect as it yields some false returns. Additional features include “a directory of prominent individuals … an interactive timeline of key research and events related to the field of human sexuality in the 20th century, three essays, and one video lecture.”

Overall, Behrend contended that “Adam Matthew has done a laudable job of digitizing the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections archival materials,” adding that Sex & Sexuality “fills a gap in the availability of electronic resources focusing on sexology.” Notably, however, users are limited to accessing resources from the Kinsey Institute, and current sex research is not available. Possible alternatives include Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender, best suited for users seeking a wider range of sources that pre-date the 20th century, and ProQuest’s GenderWatch for more current research in gender and women’s studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

This review is a summary of a longer review by Dawn Behrend, Lenoir-Rhyne University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2019 by The Charleston Company.

Social Science Premium Collection. ProQuest Contact publisher for pricing.
proquest.com/products-services/ProQuest-Social-Sciences-Premium-Collection.html

Social Science Premium Collection (SSPC), from ProQuest, includes six subject area collections—criminology, education, library and information science, linguistics, politics, and sociology—each with its own full-text database and at least one abstracting and indexing (A&I) database, as Kyle Winward detailed for ccAdvisor. Currently there are more than 25 million records of international scope, with “20 percent of the content … published in languages other than English,’” Winward added. Of those, “more than 13,000 titles are currently indexed,” including journals, magazines, book chapters, conference papers and proceedings, reference works, and newspapers. This broad range of content is in fact one of SSPC’s chief strengths, as is the inclusion of discipline-standard A&I databases, notably ERIC (covering education) and Sociological Abstracts. “SSPC also benefits from a robust, flexible search interface,” Winward added, “including a broad range of limiters and filters that allows users to drill down to [the] most relevant records.” Intuitive to use, the search interface offers both basic and advanced search with options for browsing, changing databases, and perusing recent searches. Several limiters are also available, i.e., to sort by language or publication type, though these will vary depending on the collections or databases chosen.

“No one competitive product includes the social science A&I databases and thesauri included with SSPC,” though in the field of sociology, SocINDEX, SocINDEX with FullText, and Sociology Source Ultimate (CH, Feb’20, 57-1818), all from EBSCO, stand out as possible alternatives to Sociological Abstracts (only one of SSPC’s databases). As Winward noted, “Sociological Abstracts continues to receive positive marks and a slight edge in scholarly content (over SocINDEX),” though “both SSPC and SSU received good marks for international publication coverage.” Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

This review is a summary of a longer review by Kyle D. Winward, Central College, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2019 by The Charleston Company.

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