This month, HeinOnline celebrates its 18th birthday. Since May of 2000, HeinOnline has provided legal and academic information to the library community and beyond in an image-based, user-friendly, and fully searchable format!
Where It All Began
HeinOnline’s history is extensively traced in The Invention of HeinOnline: The Story of Hein’s Dramatic Transformation in Response to the Coming of the Electronic Age by Joe Gerken. In 1995, before ‘internet’ was a household word, a memo was drafted by Kevin Marmion, then vice president of William S. Hein & Co., Inc. The memo described the potential benefits of an online library of law reviews, and even outlined how such a product would work.
In May of 2000, HeinOnline was launched with 25 journals and about 270,000 pages. This 2015 blog post discusses our growth from inception and includes several images from the Wayback Machine internet archive, when the HeinOnline interface was a bit more primitive:
By the Numbers
Since the initial release of HeinOnline:
- Nearly 157 million pages have been added
- More than 200,000 titles have been added
- About 75 databases have been added to HeinOnline’s unique, user-friendly, and image-based platform
- HeinOnline has gained subscribers in more than 175 countries, and its customer base has grown to include law schools, colleges and universities, law firms, court libraries, public libraries, government agencies, nonprofits, and individuals, among others
- HeinOnline has gone through two interface updates, each making the database more intuitive for novice and experienced researchers alike
In the past 12 months alone, HeinOnline has added:
- Nearly 150 new journals, including titles from Cambridge University Press
- Nearly 2,800 books to Legal Classics
- More than 9.6 million total pages
- About 55,000 new titles
New databases include:
- Prestatehood Legal Materials
- Gun Regulation and Legislation in America (FREE to U.S. academic and other institutional libraries!)
- Art Antiquity and Law
- Standard Federal Tax Reporter archives
- McGill Institute of Air and Space Law Publications
- Edward Elgar Publishing Law Package
- SAGE Journal Packages
- History of Capital Punishment
Existing database have also been updated with new content:
- New chapters have been added to National Survey of State Laws
- U.S. Congressional Documents has grown exponentially and now includes more than 134,000 titles and more than 25 million pages of hearings, committee reports, committee prints, CBO publications, House and Senate documents, CRS Reports, comprehensive coverage of the Congressional Record and its predecessor volumes, and much more
- World Constitutions Illustrated has grown substantially
- Session Laws indexing has continued
- So much more!
Several new features have been added in the past few months:
- McGill Guide citation format
- New language facet in the Law Journal Library
- Map view added to state research resources
- Author profile pages continue to be updated and enhanced
- Federal Register metadata enhanced
- And more!
Check out this 2017 Year In Review blog post for a summary of additional updates.
HeinOnline has also added new bloggers to help keep users on top of new content, features, and research strategies. Subscribe today to be the first to know all things HeinOnline!
Hein Company Changes This Year
In addition to continuing to increase the value of a HeinOnline subscription, important changes to Hein Company leadership have occurred:
- Shane Marmion became the fourth president in the history of the Hein Company
- Kevin Marmion, the company’s third president, became the CEO
- Wm. Shannon Hein was promoted to Executive Vice President
Additional changes are detailed in this blog post. We are proud of our past and current leadership, who have helped HeinOnline become the research powerhouse it is today!
What’s Next?
We are excited for what’s to come in the immediate future and beyond. Stay tuned for major announcements, giveaways, and more! We have plans to bring even better content to our users by the time we turn 21.
For questions about new content, features, and more, contact HeinOnline Support at holsupport@wshein.com, (800) 277-6995, or chat with us.
