Sabin Americana, 1476-1926

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    Overview

    Based on Joseph Sabinʼs bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, this digital collection from Gale Cengage provides a variety of material published about the Americas between 1500 and 1926. Included are works from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela.

    Provider
    May 31, 2024 4:27pm
    Details
    Resource Types
    Major Languages
    Collection Content

    Title History

    All of the titles are from those listed in Joseph Sabin’s bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, or Dictionary of Books Relating to America. Tricia Clayton, in a review in The Charleston Advisor, notes that Sabin’s effort to comprehensively list imprints about the Americas was conceived in 1866 but not completed until 1935, finally listing over 106,000 titles in 250,000 editions.1

    Source of the digitized content

    The first portion of the digital content came from titles already assembled in Gale’s multivolume microfiche product The Sabin Collection, consisting of material primarily from The Huntington Library and the Library of Congress. Titles were subsequently reproduced from originals at Yale University Library and the American Antiquarian Society, first in both digital format and microfiche, and more recently in digital format only. The total number of titles scanned from microfiche, according to the publisher, is 28,169. As of October, 2010 there is a total of 36,390 titles/43,991 volumes in the digital collection. The publisher has indicated that the final goal for the digital collection is around 55,000- titles. At one time it was hoped to include around 75,000 titles of the 106,000 listed by Sabin, but logistical arrangements have caused the goal to be revised.

    Content overlap

    Clayton searched to compare date range hits with EEBO, ECCP, and the Early American Imprints Series I and II (Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker), suggesting a small percentage of overlap. The publisher has confirmed estimates of maximum overlap based on analyzing publicly available data (title lists and spec sheets) from other collections:

    Timetable for release

    The collection was launched in December, 2005. Gale continues to add content at a rate of approximately 1 million pages per year, in two releases. Completion is expected in 2013.

    A list of holding institutions posted by Gale as of March, 2010, indicated sixty U.S. institutions, including over thirty CRL members. As of October, 2010, thirty-five libraries reported holdings in WorldCat (OCLC #63205055).

    Delivery

    Metadata

    The vendor sells MARC records for the titles.

    Technical platform & interface

    The database provides persistent urls which can be cited directly in course management tools.

    Gale provides copies of page images and xml of the full text and metadata which can be used to load locally, but not the application/interface tools.

    In her Charleston Advisor review Clayton notes a number of strengths in the search and display interfaces for Sabin Americana: availability of word proximity and word order proximity searches; fuzzy search for normalizing spelling and typography variations; broad topical categories for browsing; indexed transcriptions of chapter headings; and persistent URLs for referencing documents, portions of documents, and predefined searches. Weaknesses cited include limits on display of browse results; no relevance sorting for search results; absence of fast forward and reverse navigation within documents; and awkward provisions for emailing documents.

    Update 11/4/13

    The publisher will integrate this collection into their Gale Artemis: Primary Sources platform, offering advanced features first developed for the NCCO collections. Most Gale historical collections will eventually be available on the Artemis platform and thus cross searchable (if purchased). This collection will also retain its native platform and interface..

     

    Terms

    Price

    Gale sells Sabin Americana as a one-time purchase with an annual hosting fee. Pricing varies based on the size and purchasing history of the institution.

    Reviewers

    Center for Research Libraries

    • Francis Alba, Research Assistant
    • Virginia Kerr, Digital Program Manager
    Additional Reviews in Other Sources

    Tricia Clayton, “Sabin Americana, 1500-1926”, Advisor Reviews, The Charleston Advisor April 2010. http://charleston.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/charleston/chadv/2010/00000011/00000004/art00015? Accessed October 2010

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