Social Sciences love the Diamond

The stats are out! Staff and students from the Faculty of Social Sciences accessed Level 1 of the Diamond 113,122 times between 28 September 2015 and 31 January 2016. The only Faculty to use the Diamond more than Social Sciences during that time was Engineering.


The departments with the most entries were Management, Economics, Law, and Journalism.

International Historical Statistics

International Historical Statistics, 1750-2010, is the current online edition of this authoritative reference source, providing key economic and social indicators for the last 260 years. This 3-volume set is the latest edition of the most authoritative collection of statistics available. 

You can access the resource through StarPlus or by clicking the above link

Trial to International Historical Statistics

The current online edition of International Historical Statistics (1750-2010) is now available to University of Sheffield staff and students. This authoritative reference source provides key economic and social indicators for the last 260 years.

Access is available on campus only from this webpage: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/cdfiles/trialihs

The trial ends on 13 December 2014. We welcome your comments on this resource: feedback form

Lies, damn lies and statistics?

If you've ever doubted the truth of what you read in the papers (and who hasn't?) the Straight Statistics blog is for you.  Set up by journalists and statisticians from pressure group Straight Statistics,  its aim is to expose and correct some of the worst examples of  sloppy or garbled use of statistics.  Some of the examples are hilarious and make for a very entertaining and illuminating read.  You'll find here the stats behind Gordon Brown's infamous encounter with Gillian Duffy, the true cost of public sector pensions, and whether you'll really catch Legionnaire's Disease if you don't put screenwash in your car windscreen washer.

For anyone interested in this topic and in the kind of scare stories which the media relish so much, may I also recommend Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science.

OECD iLibrary trial

We have another new trial running. This one is  to the OECD iLibrary which is available to registered staff and students of the University of Sheffield until December 2009. Although it's a preliminary version and not yet fully complete nor functional, do take a look and let us have your feedback. There is a Guided Tour of the OECD iLIbrary to help you.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is one of the world's largest sources of comparable statistics, and economic and social data. As well as collecting data, OECD monitors trends, analyses and forecasts economic developments and researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and more. This trial provides access to all their books, statistics and journals.

Many OECD publications are also freely available online. They can be found either from the OECD website,  via a 'Contains' search on Find it, or from the ESDS International database in MUSE.