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ProQuest Buys Back NAPC Microfilming Assets

ProQuest (www.proquest.com) has acquired assets related to the microfilming of newspapers, collections (such as groups of books, manuscripts, and historical documents), and dissertations from National Archive Publishing Co. (NAPC; www.napubco.com), formerly a key supplier of microfilm services to ProQuest. ProQuest sold the microfilming assets to NAPC in 2005. (For details, see our NewsBreak at http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/ProQuest-Sells-Periodical-Microfilm-and-Coursepack-Businesses-to-Newly-Formed-Company-16086.asp.) ProQuest expects to integrate the assets smoothly, providing full service to its customers who rely on microfilm as the definitive archive for preservation and storage of important historical documents.

ProQuest has had a close working relationship with NAPC because of the latter's commitment to and experience with superior microfilm manufacturing processes. NAPC was founded in 2005, when ProQuest sold its microfilm manufacturing operation to focus its efforts on digital information, which the company saw as a key growth area. While ProQuest's digitization initiatives have indeed grown, the company remains committed to microfilm as the gold standard of preservation.

In January, ProQuest released the web-based microfilm viewing service, Digital Microfilm, which enables microfilm images to be viewed online rather than only in the library on special equipment. The Digital Microfilm process works by scanning microfilm and supporting the resulting digital copy on a hosted site. Users see the content as if they were looking at microfilm through their computer screen, with a browsable, full-page image of the newspaper that can be explored.  Content is supported with additional data such as title, year, month, day, and page-making it easy to skip through "reels." In this online environment, the user can view enhanced, high-resolution gray-scale images; scroll through issues; zoom; crop; print; save; and email images. For more information, visit www.proquest.com/en-US/catalogs/databases/detail/digital_microfilm.shtml.

Source: ProQuest