merged into this article . discuss proposed since september 2015 . proquest type private ; subsidiary industry information & data provider founded 1938 headquarters ann arbor michigan usa key people andy snyder chairman kurt sanford ceo jonathan collins cfo rich belanger cio parent cambridge information group website www.proquest.com proquest headquarters . proquest llc is an ann arbor michigan based global information content and technology company 1 founded in 1938 as university microfilms by eugene b. power . proquest provides solutions applications and products for libraries . 2 its resources and tools support research and learning 1 publishing and dissemination 3 and the acquisition management and discovery of library collections . 1 from its founding as a producer of microfilm products and then as an electronic publisher 4 the company has grown through acquisitions . 2 today the company provides tools for discovery and citation management and platforms that allow library users to discover manage use and share research 5 gained from authoritative content . 6 total content including dissertations and theses ebooks newspapers periodicals historical collections governmental and cultural archives 7 and other aggregated databases is estimated at over 125 billion digital pages . 8 content is accessed most commonly through library internet gateways . 4 the current chief executive officer is kurt p. sanford . 9 proquest is part of cambridge information group . contents 1 businesses 2 history 3 archived newspapers 4 products 5 see also 6 references 7 further reading 8 external links businesses edit proquest was founded as a microfilm publisher . 10 it began publishing doctoral dissertations in 1939 11 has published more than 3 million searchable dissertations and theses 12 and is designated as an offsite digital archive for the united states library of congress . 13 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 . 14 these are made available through a variety of web based interfaces . 15 a recent offering proquest video preservation and discovery service allows libraries to preserve and provide access to their proprietary audio and video collections . 16 proquest llc also operates businesses under the following names 7 bowker provides bibliographic information management solutions to publishers libraries and booksellers 17 and is the isbn agency for the united states . 18 dialog is an online information service with more than 1.4 billion unique records 19 curated for corporate business and government researchers with a focus on pharmaceutical engineering and patent research . 20 ebl ebook library an ebook aggregator with a catalog of titles from academic publishers serves academic corporate and research libraries 21 while supporting emerging collection development models such as patron driven acquisition . 22 ebrary 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 . 23 serials solutions delivers discovery and e resource access and management services 24 erams using a software as a service model . 25 history edit 2008 conference booth eugene power a 1930 m.b.a. graduate of the university of michigan founded the company as university microfilms in 1938 preserving works from the british museum 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 . 26 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 in dissertations publishing . students were often forced to publish their own works in order to finish their doctoral degree . 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 . 27 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 28 and microfilm publication of doctoral dissertations . 29 as the dissertations market grew the company expanded into filming newspapers and periodicals . the company s main newspaper database is proquest newsstand . xerox owned the company for a time in the 1970s and 1980s ; the name of the company changed several times in this period 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 . 30 in the 1980s umi began producing cd roms that stored databases 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 . 31 the bibliographic databases are mainly sold to schools universities and libraries . in 1998 the company announced the digital vault initiative 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 . 32 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 . 33 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 . 34 in 2001 proquest acquired norman ross publishing a small new york based microfilm publisher . 35 in 2004 proquest information and learning acquired seattle start up serials solutions a venture providing access management and search services for content hosted by other companies . also in 2004 the company acquired copley publishing group . 36 in 2006 proquest company then the parent company of proquest information and learning sold it to cambridge information group owner of r.r. bowker . 37 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 . 38 in 2007 proquest information and learning was merged with csa to form proquest csa . later that year it was renamed proquest llc . in 2008 proquest llc acquired complete ownership of refworks a web based citation manager of which it had been part owner since 2001 . refworks was merged with proquest s existing cos business to form refworks cos. 39 also in 2008 proquest acquired dialog a major online database firm from thomson reuters . 40 41 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 . 42 in 2011 proquest acquired ebrary an online digital library of full texts of over 170 000 scholarly e books . 43 in 2013 proquest acquired ebook library ebl with plans to combine the strongest features of ebrary and ebl into a single comprehensive e book platform . 44 in 2014 proquest acquired pi2 solutions a privately owned company specializing in product literature database pld systems for the biopharmaceutical industry . the company plans to align pi2 with its proquest dialog corporate information service . 45 in 2015 proquest acquired sipx 46 and coutts information services including the myilibrary platform and the online acquisitions and selection information system oasis . 47 in october 2015 proquest acquired ex libris . 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 . 48 in june 2016 proquest acquired alexander street press a provider of streaming videos and ebooks . 49 archived newspapers edit the american hebrew & jewish messenger 1857 1922 the american israelite 1854 2000 the arizona republic 1890 1922 atlanta daily world 1931 2003 atlanta journal constitution 1868 1945 the baltimore afro american 1893 1988 the baltimore sun 1837 1988 the boston globe 1872 1982 chicago defender 1910 1975 chicago tribune 1849 1990 christian science monitor 1908 2000 the cincinnati enquirer 1841 1922 cleveland call & post 1934 1991 detroit free press 1831 1922 the globe and mail 1844 2010 the guardian 1821 2003 and the observer 1791 2003 hartford courant 1764 1988 indianapolis star 1903 1922 irish times 1859 2012 and the weekly irish times 1876 1958 jerusalem post 1932 1988 the jewish advocate 1905 1990 jewish exponent 1887 1990 los angeles sentinel 1934 2005 los angeles times 1881 1990 the louisville courier journal 1830 1922 minneapolis tribune 1867 1922 the nashville tennessean 1812 1922 newsday 1940 1985 new york amsterdam news 1922 1993 the new york times 1851 2010 new york tribune 1841 1962 the norfolk journal & guide 1921 2003 the philadelphia tribune 1912 2001 pittsburgh courier 1911 2002 san francisco chronicle 1865 1922 south china morning post 1903 current the scotsman 1817 1950 st. louis post dispatch 1874 1922 the times of india 1838 2004 toronto star 1894 2012 the wall street journal 1889 1996 the washington post 1877 1997 chinese newspapers collection 1832 1953 products edit among the products the company sells to clients such as public and research libraries are 50 51 52 53 54 abi inform advanced technologies database with aerospace aerospace database aids & cancer research abstracts algology mycology and protozoology abstracts microbiology c alt presswatch aluminium industry abstracts american periodicals series animal behavior abstracts ante abstracts in new technology & engineering applied social sciences index and abstracts assia aquabrowser aquabrowser liquid aqualine aquatic sciences & fisheries abstracts asfa artbibliographies modern abm arts & humanities full text bacteriology abstracts microbiology b banking information source biological sciences biotechnology and bioengineering abstracts biotechnology research abstracts black studies center british humanities index bhi calcium & calcified tissue abstracts canadian newsstand cbca ceramic abstracts chemoreception abstracts civil engineering abstracts computer and information systems abstracts module copper technical reference library corrosion abstracts design and applied arts index daai dialog digital sanborn maps 55 early european books earthquake engineering abstracts ebrary ecology abstracts electronics & communications abstracts elibrary elibrary canada elibrary curriculum edition elibrary elementary elibrary science engineered materials