ANN ARBOR, Mich., June 23, 2003 - ProQuest Company's Information and Learning unit announced an agreement with Torstar Media Group that will bring the full text of the Toronto Star and more than 50 other Ontario newspapers to the company's ProQuest® online databases, including ProQuest Canadian Newsstand and select titles included in the eLibrary Canada/bigchalk Library Canada suite of K-12 products. The agreement allows ProQuest to distribute the newspaper content electronically to educational institutions, libraries, and other markets around the world.

“The Toronto Star has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Canada. Together with its sister papers, the addition of The Star adds real pow to Canadian Newsstand. Our subscribers always look for more content – now they have a huge set of new newspapers to explore in their research,” said Stephen Abram, vice president, corporate development, for Micromedia ProQuest in Toronto.

Besides The Star, three Ontario dailies and 50 Torstar Metroland community papers, covering most of Southern Ontario, make up the new content.  Key titles include:  The Cambridge Reporter, Guelph Mercury, The Hamilton Spectator, The (Kitchener-Waterloo) Record, Brampton Guardian, North York Mirror and York Guardian.

The agreement includes all available electronic backfiles without embargoes or market restrictions. All of the newspapers will be available by subscription in Canadian Newsstand in three packages: as packaged subsets, major dailies packages, and a complete package, or as individual titles. Content will be available once the data load is complete.  Newspaper content will also be available in eLibrary Canada and bigchalk Library Canada databases.

Customers can sign up for the ProQuest specialized email notification lists at: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/site/forms/mailinglist.shtml to receive notification when new content is added.

 

About Torstar Corporation

Torstar Corporation is a broadly based media company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TS.B). Its businesses include daily newspapers led by The Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo), the Guelph Mercury, and their internet-related businesses; Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing, publishers of more than 70 community newspapers in Southern Ontario; and Harlequin Enterprises, a leading global publisher of women's fiction.

 

About ProQuest
ProQuest creates specialized information resources and technologies that propel successful research, discovery, and lifelong learning. A global leader in serving libraries of all types, ProQuest offers the expertise of such respected brands as Chadwyck-Healey™, UMI®, SIRS®, and eLibrary®. With Serials Solutions®, Ulrich's™, RefWorks®, COS™, Dialog® and now Bowker® part of the ProQuest brand family, the company supports the breadth of the information community with innovative discovery solutions that power the business of books and the best in research experience.

More than a content provider or aggregator, ProQuest is an information partner, creating indispensable research solutions that connect people and information. Through innovative, user-centered discovery technology, ProQuest offers billions of pages of global content that includes historical newspapers, dissertations, and uniquely relevant resources for researchers of any age and sophistication—including content not likely to be digitized by others. Inspired by its customers and their end users, ProQuest is working toward a future that blends information accessibility with community to further enhance learning and encourage lifelong enrichment.

For more information, visit www.proquest.com or the ProQuest parent company website, www.cig.com.