ProQuest LLC is an
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by
Eugene B. Power
Eugene Barnum Power (June 4, 1905 – December 6, 1993) was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder of the modern microfilm industry, and pioneer in the use of microfilm for the reproduction of scholarly publications.
Life and career
...
. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries,
providing access to dissertations, theses, ebooks, newspapers, periodicals, historical collections, governmental archives, cultural archives,
["Jisc and ProQuest Enable Access to Essential Digital Content"](_blank)
retrieved May 21, 2014 and other aggregated databases. This content was estimated to be around 125 billion digital pages,
retrieved May 21, 2014 and is commonly accessed through library Internet gateways.
This includes tools for discovery and
citation management, and platforms that allow library users to search, manage, use, and share research.
The company began operations as a producer of
microfilm
Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...
products, subsequently shifting to
electronic publishing
Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, Online magazine, digital magazines, and the development of digital library, digital libraries and catalo ...
,
and later grew through acquisitions.
On December 1, 2021,
Clarivate
Clarivate Plc is a British-American Public company, publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription business model, subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business intelligence, ...
bought ProQuest from
Cambridge Information Group
Cambridge Information Group (CIG) is a privately held global investment firm focusing on information services, education and technology. It began as a firm providing services to academic publishers. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
As ...
for $5.3 billion in what was described as "huge deal in the library and information publishing world". Clarivate said that the operational concept behind the acquisition was integrating ProQuest's products and applications with
Web of Science.
Businesses
ProQuest was founded as a microfilm publisher. It began publishing doctoral dissertations in 1939, has published more than 3 million searchable dissertations and theses, and is designated as an offsite digital archive for the United States Library of Congress. The company's scholarly content includes dissertations and theses, primary source material, ebooks, scholarly journals, historical and current newspapers and periodicals, data sources, and other content of interest to researchers. ProQuest Video Preservation and Discovery Service, allows libraries to preserve and provide access to their proprietary audio and video collections.
In May 2014, ProQuest LLC also operated businesses under the following names:
*
Bowker Bowker is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Alan Bowker, Canadian diplomat and educator
*Albert H. Bowker (1919–2008), American educator
*Aldrich Bowker (1875–1947), American actor
* Art Bowker (born 1961), American writer
* ...
provides bibliographic information management solutions to publishers, libraries and booksellers, and is the
ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...
Agency for the United States.
*
Dialog
Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008.
Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...
is an online information service with more than 1.4 billion unique records curated for corporate, business and government researchers, with a focus on pharmaceutical, engineering and patent research.
*EBL (Ebook Library), an ebook aggregator with a catalog of titles from academic publishers, serves academic, corporate and research libraries while supporting emerging
collection development
Library collection development is the process of systematically building the collection of a particular library to meet the information needs of the library users (a service population) in a timely and economical manner using information resources ...
models such as
patron-driven acquisition Patron-driven acquisition (PDA), also referred to as demand-driven acquisition (DDA), is a model of library collection development in which a library only purchases materials when it is clear that a patron wants them. In an ideal transaction, libra ...
.
*
ebrary
ebrary (the "e" is lower case) was an online digital library which held over 100,000 scholarly e-books in 2014. It was available in many academic libraries and provided a set of online database collections that combined scholarly books from ove ...
offers access to ebook collections, by subscription or a
perpetual archive model, in subject packages tailored for academic, corporate, government, public and high school libraries.
History
Eugene Power
Eugene Barnum Power (June 4, 1905 – December 6, 1993) was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder of the modern microfilm industry, and pioneer in the use of microfilm for the reproduction of scholarly publications.
Life and career
...
, a 1930 MBA graduate of the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, founded the company as University Microfilms in 1938, preserving works from the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
on microfilm. By June 1938, Power worked in two rented rooms from a downtown Ann Arbor funeral parlor, specializing in microphotography to preserve library collections. In his autobiography ''Edition of One'', Power details the development of the company, including how University Microfilms assisted the
OSS during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. This work mainly involved filming maps and European newspapers so they could be shipped back and forth overseas more cheaply and discreetly.
Power also noticed a
niche market
A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it ...
in
dissertations publishing. Students were often forced to publish their own works in order to finish their
doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
. Dissertations could be published more cheaply as microfilm than as books. ProQuest still publishes so many dissertations that its
Dissertations and Theses collection (formerly called Digital Dissertations) has been declared the official U.S. off-site repository of the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
The idea of universal adoption of microfilm publication of doctoral dissertations was furthered considerably by two articles researched and written by a then recent recipient of the doctorate in history at Stanford University. Vaughn Davis Bornet seized on the idea and published "Doctoral Dissertations and the Stream of Scholarship" and "Microfilm Publication of Doctoral Dissertations".
As the dissertations market grew, the company expanded into filming newspapers and
periodical
A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples ...
s. The company's main newspaper database is ProQuest Newsstand.
In 1962,
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
acquired the company for 51,750 shares of Xerox common stock, worth about $7.9 million. Under Xerox's ownership, the name of the company changed several times, from University Microfilms to Xerox University Microfilms, to University Microfilms International, then shortened to UMI. In 1985 it was purchased from Xerox by
Bell & Howell
Bell and Howell LLC is a U.S.-based services organization and former manufacturer of cameras, lenses, and motion picture machinery, founded in 1907 by two projectionists, and originally headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company is now he ...
. In 1986, UMI acquired Data Courier, owner of ABI/INFORM, from the
Bingham family.
In the 1980s, UMI began producing
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
s that stored
databases
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...
of periodicals abstracts and indexes. At a time when modem connections were slow and expensive, it was more efficient to mail database CD-ROMs regularly to subscribing libraries, who installed the discs on dedicated PCs. The ProQuest brand name was first used for databases on CD-ROM. An online service called ProQuest Direct was launched in 1995; its name was later shortened to just ProQuest. The bibliographic databases are mainly sold to schools, universities and libraries.
In 1998, the company announced the "
Digital Vault Initiative
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
", purported to include 5.5 billion images digitized from UMI microfilm, including some of the best existing copies of major newspapers dating back 100 to 150 years, and Early English books dating back to the 15th century. While work continues to digitize the contents of the microfilm vault, ProQuest is already providing navigation of 125 billion digital pages, including nearly 20 million pages of newspaper content dating from pre-Revolutionary War America.
In 1999, the company name changed to Bell & Howell Information and Learning, and then in 2001 to ProQuest Information and Learning; Bell & Howell renamed itself the ProQuest Company.
Also in 1999, the company acquired
Chadwyck-Healey, a one-time microfilm publishing company that was one of the first to produce full-text CD-ROM databases. This acquisition gave Proquest ownership of a 100+ person publishing operation based in Cambridge, England and became the basis for a substantial overseas expansion.
During the 2000–2004 fiscal years, as well as the first three quarters of the 2005 fiscal year, ProQuest systematically overstated its net income. Cumulatively, pre-tax profits were overstated by 129.9 million dollars (or about 31 percent). In 2008, Voyager Learning Company and ProQuest's CFO (from the time of the earnings overstatements) settled SEC "charges without admitting or denying the allegations of the SEC's complaint".
In 2001 ProQuest acquired Norman Ross Publishing, a small New York based microfilm publisher.
In 2002 ProQuest acquired bigchalk.com, a company founded in 1999 with the combined assets of ProQuest's K-12 division and Infonautics Inc.'s K-12 business..
In 2004, ProQuest Information and Learning acquired Seattle start-up
Serials Solutions
Serials Solutions was a division of ProQuest that provided e-resource access and management services (ERAMS) to libraries. These products enabled librarians to more easily manage electronic resources that serve the needs of their users. Serials Sol ...
, a venture providing access management and search services for content hosted by other companies.
Also in 2004, the company acquired Copley Publishing Group.
In 2006, ProQuest Company, then the parent company of ProQuest Information and Learning, sold it to
Cambridge Information Group
Cambridge Information Group (CIG) is a privately held global investment firm focusing on information services, education and technology. It began as a firm providing services to academic publishers. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
As ...
, owner of
R. R. Bowker
R. R. Bowker LLC (trading as Bowker) is an American limited liability company domiciled under Delaware Limited Liability Company Law and based in Chatham, New Jersey. Among other things, Bowker provides bibliographic information on publish ...
. From the time of this sale, this article follows the history of ProQuest Information and Learning, not ProQuest Company. (ProQuest Company subsequently renamed itself to Voyager Learning Company, and later became part of
Cambium Learning Group
Cambium Learning Group is an American technology company which creates computer software and hardware products serving students ranging from pre-kindergarten to adult; and enabling educators who help them learn. As of December 2018, it is ow ...
.)
In 2007, ProQuest Information and Learning was merged with
CSA
CSA may refer to:
Arts and media
* Canadian Screen Awards, annual awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television
* Commission on Superhuman Activities, a fictional American government agency in Marvel Comics
* Crime Syndicate of Amer ...
to form ProQuest CSA. Later that year it was renamed ProQuest LLC.
In 2008, ProQuest LLC acquired complete ownership of
RefWorks
RefWorks is a web-based commercial reference management software package. It is produced by Ex Libris, a ProQuest company. RefWorks LLC was founded in 2001 as a partnership between Earl B. Beutler (development and customer service) and Cambridg ...
, a web-based
citation manager
Reference management software, citation management software, or bibliographic management software is software for scholars and authors to use for recording and utilising bibliographic citations (references) as well as managing project references ...
of which it had been part owner since 2001. RefWorks was merged with ProQuest's existing COS business to form RefWorks/COS.
Also in 2008, ProQuest acquired
Dialog
Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008.
Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...
, a major online database firm, from
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
.
In 2010, ProQuest acquired two properties from LexisNexis, Congressional Information Service (CIS) and University Publications of America (UPA). CIS produced one of the world's most exhaustive online collections of legislative content and highly respected statistical works, while UPA included deep historical content sets. The acquisition included digital products and an expansive microfilm vault that would leverage ProQuest's strength in conversion from film to searchable electronic formats.
In 2011, ProQuest acquired
Ebrary
ebrary (the "e" is lower case) was an online digital library which held over 100,000 scholarly e-books in 2014. It was available in many academic libraries and provided a set of online database collections that combined scholarly books from ove ...
, an online digital library of full texts of over 170,000 scholarly
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
s. In 2013, ProQuest acquired Ebook Library (EBL), with plans to combine ebrary and EBL into a single e-book platform.
In 2014, ProQuest acquired Pi2 Solutions, a privately owned company specializing in Drug Safety Triager (DST) & Product Literature Database (PLD) systems for the biopharmaceutical industry. The company aligned Pi2 Solutions with its ProQuest Dialog corporate information service.
In 2015, ProQuest acquired SiPX and Coutts Information Services, including the MyiLibrary platform and the Online Acquisitions and Selection Information System (OASIS).
In October 2015, ProQuest acquired
Ex Libris
Ex Libris may refer to:
*An Ex Libris (bookplate), a label affixed to a book to indicate ownership
*Ex Libris (band), a Dutch metal band
*Ex Libris (bookshop), a Swiss retail company
* "Ex Libris" (''Charmed''), a 2000 episode of the television ser ...
. It was to merge the Workflow Solutions division of ProQuest, which included the former Serials Solutions, into Ex Libris, with the enlarged entity to be named "Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company".
In June 2016, ProQuest acquired
Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street is an electronic academic database publisher.
It was founded in May 2000 in Alexandria, Virginia, by Stephen Rhind-Tutt (President), Janice Cronin (CFO), and Eileen Lawrence (Vice President, Sales and Marketing). As of January ...
, a provider of streaming videos and ebooks.
In January 2020, ProQuest acquired
Innovative Interfaces, Inc.
Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (abbreviated III and called "Innovative" or "Triple I" in the industry) is a software company specializing in integrated systems for library management. Their key products include Sierra, Polaris, Millennium, and Vir ...
, a provider of technology solutions to academic and public libraries.
On 17 May 2021, it was announced that Clarivate would acquire ProQuest. On July 28, 2021, Clarivate announced that the acquisition was delayed due to a Federal Trade Commission antitrust probe.
On December 1, 2021,
Clarivate
Clarivate Plc is a British-American Public company, publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription business model, subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business intelligence, ...
successfully completed the acquisition of ProQuest.
Products
Among the products the company sells to clients such as public and research libraries are:
See also
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:ProQuest
Educational publishing companies of the United States
Publishing companies based in Michigan
1938 establishments in Michigan
Bibliographic database providers
Companies based in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Publishing companies established in 1938
Xerox
2006 mergers and acquisitions
2021 mergers and acquisitions