ProQuest’s Dose of Daily News
By Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 7/15/2006
ProQuest has put a new spin on its newspaper offerings with the debut of ND Press, a service that gives librarians the power to print a large number of domestic and international daily newspapers inside their facilities. ND Press, actually a service of the Vancouver, BC–based NewspaperDirect, prints exact duplicates of more than 330 dailies from 60 countries in 36 languages.
When ND was founded in 1999, special printers were required to replicate the newspapers, but now the publications can be printed on any networked printer. According to ProQuest, libraries can tailor the service “to have titles printed automatically or as needed.” The service also includes a 60-day archive of past issues. Although the publications are available in their entirety with ads intact, librarians can opt to print the entire newspaper or individual page prints, including article text, advertisements, classifieds, and assorted notices. ProQuest is offering free trials of ND Press.
Historical reports
Along with ND Press, ProQuest also is marketing a new database of Historical Annual Reports sporting “160 years of continuous coverage for more than 700 of America’s top corporations.” To collect the materials, ProQuest combed its own expansive fiche archive as well as the resources of content partners Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, and Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA; information from 1995 to the present was provided by business and financial profilers Mergent, Inc.
ProQuest asserts that coverage spans the history of some of the nation’s most influential businesses, including Mutual Life of New York (160 years), Ford Motor Company (93 years), General Electric Company (112 years), Coca Cola Company (85 years), Texaco (85 years), and Sears Roebuck & Co. (98 years).
