The History Resource Center: US (HRC:US) <http://www.galegroup.com/HistoryRC/ index.htm> is a searchable database of primary documents, secondary reference sources, and journal articles covering all areas of US history from pre‐colonial times to the present day. Users can search for information by person, time period, and subject or develop a custom search. HRC:US has easy‐to‐use screens and, for users who need further assistance, the help screens do a credible job of steering users through the process of searching for information.
To do a person search, type in the name (if known) and any particulars about a person. Options include profession, nationality, ethnicity, birth and/or death year, birth and/or death place, gender, and others. For example, a search for George Mason, a Virginian of George Washington’s time (and a neighbor of his), yielded results showing his involvement with, among other things, the development of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the anti‐slavery movement during the pre‐ and post‐colonial era. In this particular example, the database retrieved information contained in Civil Rights in America: 1500 to the Present (Jay A. Sigler, Gale, 1998) and Dictionary of American History (7 vol., Scribner, 1976). HRC:US is a good online starting point for this information.
A time period search involves selecting a year, a range of years, or a decade. For example, users searching the time period 1775 to 1860 AD can access a number of Gale‐ or Gale‐related sources dealing with these time periods, with era overviews and specific event overviews. Sources revealed in the search results include text from the book DISCovering US History (Gale, 1997), a section of which highlights the role of women and children in the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783.
A subject search can be done by clicking on the search box that first appears when users access this product, or by clicking on subject. Entering a topic in the box, such as “Alamo”, retrieves sources such as Alamo, 1836. Clicking on View Results will retrieve overviews for the topic.
In a custom search, users may search by either full text or by subject. For example, users may fill in the full text box with terms such as “John Brown Harper’s Ferry” and add a time period of 1855 to 1865. This retrieves a facsimile of an anti‐slavery tract by John Brown. When “John Brown” is entered as a subject, HRC:US retrieves a number of hits, which users can then select by clicking on results. In this demonstration search, results were taken from sources such as the Encyclopedia of African‐American Culture and History (5 vol., Macmillan, 1996).
In order to test the search option “present day”, which is used in the product description, users may enter a subject search for terms such as “United States foreign relations”, for example. The hits displayed in this case contain full‐text journal articles (Gale currently has 65 journals with full‐text loaded in their database) which range in publication date from 1992 to within the past two months, featuring countries such as Germany, Japan, and others.
In conclusion, HRC:US is easy to use and collects a number of useful sources in one place. With this product, users won’t have to worry about whether the primary and secondary sources contained within the database are available locally. Institutions investing in this product can save the funds that would be needed to acquire many of the print resources utilized by Gale as well as the space needed to house them. Librarians would do well to examine this product for possible subscription.
