ProQuest Acquires ebrary, Adds a Quarter-Million E-books

Library services provider ProQuest has acquired digital content and services provider ebrary, a union that will "add a growing pool of a quarter-million e-books to ProQuest's monumental content offerings," according to a press release issued by ProQuest about the acquisition. The release also cited that ebrary, which was founded in 1999, had increased its 2010 revenue by more than 30 percent over the previous year.

"This is a game-changer for global research," says Marty Kahn, ProQuest CEO. "While a natural next step has been to enhance e-book discovery for ProQuest platform users, there's also far greater potential here. We're primed for imaginative technology mash-ups that will energize users and accelerate the knowledge industry. The creative minds and deft technologists of ebrary are a welcome and fitting addition to our future-oriented business."

According to ProQuest, it plans continued investment in ebrary's products and services for the academic, corporate and public library markets. It also will expand ebrary's selection of research tools, ability to support new e-book devices as well as broadening language coverage to include Chinese, Arabic and others. Further, the company will accelerate the indexing of ebrary's e-book content on its technology platform, so ebrary's e-books will be searchable along with ProQuest's research content.

"Ultimately ... ebrary will be positioned to drive new levels of e-book discovery and usage, enhancing value for both publishers and end-users," according to ProQuest.

ebrary's founders, CEO Christopher Warnock and President Kevin Sayar, will continue to lead the business from the company's Palo Alto headquarters.

"ebrary is extremely excited to become a part of ProQuest," says Warnock. "There is tremendous synergy between our products and services as well as our teams. Together, we know that we can provide best-of-kind services to libraries worldwide and the users they serve."

"This is the next chapter for ebrary," adds Sayar.