ProQuest Acquires ebrary

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Of wide interest.

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From: ProQuest [mailto:proquestmail99@proquest.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2011 12:45 PM

Dear Valued Customer:

As we enter the New Year, ProQuest's content-unifying new search
platform is rolling out to libraries around the world. It is an
exciting time, and ProQuest, together with acclaimed e-book
pioneer ebrary is pleased to announce ProQuest's planned
acquisition of ebrary, setting the stage for significant
acceleration of the process of serious research. The acquisition
marries both companies' inventive, user-centric technologies and
adds a growing pool of a quarter-million e-books to ProQuest's
monumental content offerings.

Founded in Palo Alto in 1999, ebrary is a fast growing leader in
the rapidly evolving e-book industry. Key to ebrary's success are
its flexible, customer-oriented models including subscription,
perpetual access, and patron driven acquisition; a growing
selection of digital books and other valuable content from some
500 of the world's top publishers; and cutting edge technology,
including InfoTools and DASH!, designed by the Silicon Valley's
most talented engineers. ebrary has built a reputation for
providing consistent innovation that uniquely supports the
research experience, making the company a natural fit in
ProQuest's mission to support global research.

ProQuest plans continued investment in ebrary's popular products
and services for the academic, corporate, and public library
markets including Academic Complete - the company's flagship
product that provides the best e-book value in the industry with
multi-user access to more than 52,000 titles. Additionally,
ProQuest will expand ebrary's selection of research tools and
ability to support new e-book devices and broadening language
coverage from its current support of major European languages to
include Chinese, Arabic and others. Further, ProQuest will
accelerate the indexing of e-book content on its own all-new
platform where books offered by ebrary will be searchable along
with ProQuest's highly-sought research content. Ultimately, as
part of the ProQuest family, ebrary will be positioned to drive
new levels of e-book discovery and usage enhancing value for both
publishers and end-users.

ebrary founders Christopher Warnock and Kevin Sayar will remain
to lead the business in its Palo Alto headquarters.

Driven by a long history of direct interaction with researchers,
ebrary products have earned a well-deserved reputation for high
quality supported by top-notch service. This is a time of rapid
change in the information industry, as companies continue to find
new ways to provide information. We are proud to include these
products in the ProQuest family as wonderful complements to the
services offered to academic, government, public library, and
corporate market customers.

You have our commitment to keep you informed about any changes
that might affect you. Customers should continue to work with the
sales and service representatives you currently use. You can be
confident that all of your contracts, license rights, and account
balances will be intact.

The opportunity to work with you, our valued customers is deeply
valued.

In the meantime, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us
with comments, questions, or observations. Here's to an exciting
new beginning for ProQuest and ebrary to join forces to create a
bright new future together: where serious research starts.

Marty Kahn, ProQuest

Christopher Warnock and Kevin Sayar, ebrary