320 million records from ProQuest® Central now discoverable through WorldCat Discovery Services

DUBLIN, Ohio, and ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 320 million records from 88 collections in the award-winning ProQuest® Central database are now discoverable, and the full text associated with those records is now accessible to mutual subscribers through OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.

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The new discovery experience is possible through a data exchange agreement signed in 2013 by OCLC and ProQuest to enhance library discovery for users of WorldCat Discovery Services and the ProQuest Central full-text database. The program shares metadata from some of the world's most-widely used library collections, enriching the content and creating connections for users of both ProQuest Central and WorldCat Discovery.

"ProQuest's focus is on supporting libraries by developing seamless research experiences for their users," said Kurt Sanford, ProQuest CEO. "We're working within ProQuest to make that happen and also working with organizations outside of ProQuest. This collaboration with OCLC is a great example."

"OCLC member libraries that subscribe to these popular ProQuest databases can now easily access the full-text of this content through the discovery service of their choice," said Skip Prichard, OCLC President and CEO. "OCLC and ProQuest are committed to finding new ways to collaborate to benefit libraries and their users."

In November 2013, OCLC and ProQuest announced a collaboration to facilitate automation of the process to keep e-book holdings from ebrary and EBL – Ebook Library up to date in WorldCat and library catalogs, and offers current links to library users for easy access to those titles.

ProQuest Central is the largest multidisciplinary, full-text database available in the market today. The agreement between ProQuest and OCLC will provide access to the primary ProQuest Central database and 88 of its most widely-used databases. With journal, newspaper and scholarly content in more than 160 subjects, it's regarded as the broadest single research resource in the world.  Now, libraries can choose to access their ProQuest Central subscription content through WorldCat Discovery Services as well as the ProQuest Summon service.

WorldCat Discovery Services is a new suite of cloud-based applications that brings the FirstSearch and WorldCat Local services together. Set to launch in March, the new suite will provide library users increased access to more than 1.3 billion records representing the most widely used e-content collections in libraries.

WorldCat Discovery Services will be available to all 18,000 OCLC FirstSearch subscribers in March. FirstSearch will operate in parallel during a year-long transition so libraries can choose when to migrate to the new service. WorldCat Local libraries will also move to the WorldCat Discovery over the next 18 months. The transition will begin in March with a beta period when WorldCat Local subscribers can begin using the service and plan transition activities.

About ProQuest
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world's knowledge—from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms. Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the delivery of complete, trustworthy information. An energetic, fast-growing organization, ProQuest includes the ProQuest^®, Bowker^®, Dialog^®, ebrary^®, and Serials Solutions^® businesses and notable research tools such as the RefWorks^®, and Pivot^™ services, as well as its' Summon^® web-scale discovery service. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world. More about ProQuest is available at www.proquest.com.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing library costs. More than 74,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world's largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

OCLC, WorldCat and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.

SOURCE ProQuest