ProQuest’s Business Operations and Offerings
– Founded as University Microfilms in 1938
– Publishes doctoral dissertations and theses
– Designated as an offsite digital archive for the United States Library of Congress
– Offers scholarly content including ebooks, journals, newspapers, and data sources
– Provides video preservation and discovery services for libraries
ProQuest’s Acquired Businesses
– Bowker: Provides bibliographic information management solutions
– Dialog: Online information service with billions of unique records
– EBL (Ebook Library): Aggregator of academic publishers’ titles
– ebrary: Offers ebook collections for various types of libraries
– ProQuest Newsstand: Main newspaper database
ProQuest’s History and Ownership Changes
– Founded by Eugene Power in 1938 as University Microfilms
– Assisted the OSS during World War II by filming maps and newspapers
– Expanded into dissertations publishing and microfilming newspapers and periodicals
– Acquired by Xerox in 1962 and later by Bell & Howell in 1985
– Introduced ProQuest brand for CD-ROM databases and online services
– Ownership changes include being sold to Cambridge Information Group in 2006 and later becoming part of Cambium Learning Group
ProQuest’s Digital Content
– Digital Vault Initiative: Includes 5.5 billion digitized images from UMI microfilm
– Navigation of 125 billion digital pages, including newspaper content dating back to pre-Revolutionary War America
– Access to dissertations and theses, historical books, and Early English books
– Provides databases of periodicals abstracts and indexes
– Sells bibliographic databases to schools, universities, and libraries
ProQuest’s Acquisitions and Financial Issues
– Acquired Chadwyck-Healey in 1999 for overseas expansion
– Overstated net income by 129.9 million dollars from 2000 to 2005
– Settlement of SEC charges with Voyager Learning Company and ProQuest’s CFO
– Acquisition of Norman Ross Publishing in 2001
– Acquisitions of bigchalk.com, Serials Solutions, and Copley Publishing Group in 2002-2004
– Additional acquisitions include Dialog, Congressional Information Service (CIS), University Publications of America (UPA), Ebrary, Ebook Library (EBL), Pi2 Solutions, SiPX, Coutts Information Services, Alexander Street Press, Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and the acquisition by Clarivate in 2021.
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene Power.
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 Headquarters at Ann Arbor, Michigan | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Information and data provider |
| Founded | 1938 as University Microfilms |
| Founder | Eugene Power |
| Fate | Acquired by Clarivate on December 1, 2021 |
| Headquarters | Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
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| Parent |
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| Website | proquest |
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, and other aggregated databases. This content was estimated to be around 125 billion digital pages, and is commonly accessed through library Internet gateways. This includes tools for discovery and citation management,[example needed] and platforms that allow library users to search, manage, use, and share research.[example needed]
The company began operations as a producer of microfilm products, subsequently shifting to electronic publishing, and later grew through acquisitions. On December 1, 2021, Clarivate bought ProQuest from Cambridge Information Group 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.
