Gale Acquires Questia

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Gale, part of Cengage Learning, has acquired the assets of Questia Media, Inc., a leading provider of information and educational resources to students through its questia.com and questiaschool.com products. Questia provides a premium subscription-based online information service that gives users access to more than 76,000 books from 300+ publishers and millions of articles from journals, magazines and newspapers.

"Questia has developed excellent products for learners and educators, with quality content and unique technologies created specifically for college students, professors and high school students," said Patrick C. Sommers, president, Gale. "The business has a solid subscription base and is developing unique applications to extend its reach to users around the world.

"Questia will further broaden Gale's extensive content base, by adding information from tens of thousands of scholarly books selected from leading publishers to support learning in high school and college. In addition, it will enhance Gale's offerings with new research and productivity tools, lesson plans, and professional development for the classroom," said Sommers.

"But perhaps most importantly, Questia will expand our depth and reach to users who begin their search for information on the Web," said Sommers. "A major focus at Gale is reaching users wherever they do their research and connecting them with high-quality content and the resources of their library. We see considerable synergy with Gale's HighBeam, Encyclopedia.com and AccessMyLibrary services, as well as our library products, and we look forward to the expansion of content and services that will result from this combination of resources."

Tim Harris, president and CEO, Questia Media, Inc., said, "By joining with Gale, Questia believes its customers will benefit from Gale's financial strength, complementary content resources and innovative approach to product development. Gale has an outstanding reputation for serving users with quality information products, and we are confident that the combination of resources and talent will ensure ongoing innovation for users."

Recent product access enhancements introduced by Questia include an iPhone application enabling mobile access to Questia's entire library, and Research Wizard, a Facebook application that facilitates community research. Gale will support these and develop other new applications to enhance the research experience for users.

Customer service and technical support contacts will remain unchanged for customers at this time. More information about Questia Media is available at www.questia.com.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

About Cengage Learning and Gale

Cengage Learning delivers highly customized learning solutions for colleges, universities, professors, students, libraries, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the world. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world's information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs – from homework help to health questions to business profiles – in a variety of formats. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.gale.com.

SOURCE Gale