The Ann Arbor News has an article about ProQuest CSA (the company formed when CSA bought the reference division of ProQuest), which will be adopting the simple name ProQuest. The company’s new CEO says that sales are strong, the product pipeline is in good shape, and they have plans to hire plenty of new employees over the coming months.
Meanwhile, EBSCO is buying two of ABC-CLIO’s longest-running history databases. Here’s a description from PersonaNonData. It makes sense that ABC-CLIO is divesting itself of these abstracting databases to focus on their newer full-text offerings that are filled entirely with original ABC-CLIO data. On that note, the companies also announced that EBSCO has licensed 8 of ABC-CLIO’s other databases. It’s mainly to make it easier for librarians from a purchasing and logistical standpoint, as users of these databases will be directed to ABC-CLIO’s own electronic platform.
The American Library Association’s annual convention is this coming weekend in Washington, D.C. I’m gearing up for a busy slate of meetings with our publishing clients, partners, and librarian advisors. Having been to D.C. in late June once before, I’m not terribly enthused about the prospects of the hot, humid, sauna-like weather. And wearing a suit and tie, to boot! But the meetings should be very interesting and useful, so I’m looking forward to it.
And the convention also always provides an opportunity to see what other publishers are focusing on. On that note, I’ve been interested to see that a couple of publishers are launching huge, multivolume reference works. First, Oxford University Press is touting its forthcoming African American National Biography: 8 volumes, with a pre-pub price of $795 ($995 thereafter). OUP actually published a very abbreviated volume in this line, African American Lives, a couple of years ago. (We coordinated the copy editing and fact-checking of that volume.) The new set, to be published in February 2008, will expand the coverage to 4,000 biographies.
An even bigger project is being launched by ABC-CLIO. Their upcoming Encyclopedia of World History will comprise a jaw-dropping, door-stopping 21 volumes, at a price of $1,845. They are advertising an April 2008 publication date. As the saying goes, more is more.
Congressional Quarterly Press and the New York Times have formed an imprint called TimesReference to produce a new series of reference books for libraries. The books will apparently utilize material from the NYT’s archives. Here’s a brief story about it from MediaBistro.