Udini™ by ProQuest Innovates with On-Demand Premium Information Service for Individual Researchers

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Knowledge powerhouse ProQuest is launching an inventive new research service that provides individuals with access to premium content and cutting edge tools. Instant and on-demand, Udini™ bundles an extraordinary range of information, including peer-reviewed and trade journal articles, dissertations, international newswires, newspapers, magazines and more from thousands of publishers in a comprehensive cloud-based workflow management tool designed for individual users. For knowledge workers without access to research libraries, Udini™ provides unprecedented ease for finding and using the highest quality information for professional projects. For publishers with already-strong academic distribution, Udini™ opens a trusted and compelling new channel to reach an under-served group of users who want and need their content.

"Research libraries play a critical role in our knowledge economy, but not everyone who needs serious content is connected to a scholarly library. Research for these unaffiliated users is confusing and inefficient unless they know exactly what they're looking for. Premium information -- when it's accessible at all -- is distributed behind many different paywalls all over the Web," said Rich LaFauci, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ProQuest Research Solutions.  "Udini™ curates and licenses high-quality content and makes it incredibly easy to discover, acquire and use. The entire service is crafted from the end-user's perspective -- from the content to the tools to the commerce model. It's simple, easy and flexible."

Proprietary content from market-leading publishers such as Springer, Nature Publishing Group, the Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the World Health Organization, Cambridge University Press and 3,800 others is already slated to be available through Udini™.  The fast-growing service currently encompasses some 150 million full-text articles as well as the highly regarded ProQuest dissertations archive, the world's most consulted collection of intellectual property and emerging research from universities. Udini™ combines the kind of information resources offered by scholarly libraries with the intuitive search and content management of a cloud-based web service.  

Udini™ serves growing ranks of independent researchers, from freelancers, to workers in organizations without their own libraries, to unaffiliated authors.  These users can search and then add desired content to the Udini™ cloud-based project organization and management tool, which also welcomes information from personal libraries and the open web, enabling them to capture their projects' whole research file in one always-accessible space.  All content types share an easy-to-read display that allows note taking and highlighting. Purchase plans are flexible -- by the article, by the month or by the project -- and some content is free. There's no cost to use or store projects in Udini™. 

ProQuest is continuously developing the Udini™ service, including the exploration of new access models such as subscriptions for alumni associations. To learn more, visit udini.proquest.com.

About ProQuest (www.proquest.com)

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 management and delivery of complete, trustworthy information.

ProQuest's massive information pool is made accessible in research environments that accelerate productivity, empowering users to discover, create, and share knowledge.

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.

SOURCE ProQuest