Another Big Buyout
Posted On Dec 16 2006It’s the holiday season. What do you buy for the content provider who already has everything (or at least a strong stake in natural sciences, social sciences, technology, arts, and humanities)? Well, if you had $222 million you could have bought ProQuest Information and Learning (PQIL) for the Cambridge Information Group. But you probably don’t have that kind of cash lying around. No worries, CIG bought PQIL for itself. In a press release issued yesterday morning, CIG announced its intention to combine its subsidiary, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA), with the ProQuest division, which includes ProQuest, Chadwyck-Healey, UMI, Micromedia ProQuest, Serials …
On the Catalog
Posted On Dec 6 2006It probably would not surprise anyone to know that I have given quite a bit of thought to the library catalog. While I (and others) have been taking NCSU’s story on the road quite a bit lately, I have not participated very actively in the professional discussion since I uttered those four seemingly innocent little words at LITA’s Top Technology Trends almost two years ago: “The OPAC still sucks.” The fuller context of the quote had to do with newer technologies and trends distracting us from this inescapable fact; nevertheless, I will be remembered in some circles for adding a word …
Wiley Acquires Blackwell
Posted On Nov 29 2006I finally broke down and created a “Mergers & Acquisitions” category, which if things continue will easily be one of the bigger categories on this blog. In a deal valued at over $1 billion, John Wiley & Sons has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the outstanding shares of Blackwell Publishing (Holdings), Ltd. (Blackwell, Ltd., the library book vendor and retailer, remains a separate entity and is not part of the acquisition.) The two companies’ 2005 revenues combined were roughly $750 million. Rene Olivieri, CEO of Blackwell Publishing and Wiley’s Steve Smith, senior vice president of international development and …