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ProQuest Unveils New Technologies for its Upcoming Platform

At the American Library Association (ALA) conference in Washington, D.C., attendees got a preview of the latest developments for ProQuest's all-new platform, which promises to unify all ProQuest content in a single framework. The new platform will now include ProQuest Extended Search, a Serials Solutions technology that will enable libraries to connect to other non-ProQuest databases as well. Users will not only discover a broader set of content, but will use the platform to gather, share, and create it as well. The ProQuest platform is the highlight of a wave of new technology being released by the company throughout 2010 and beyond. ProQuest will begin migrating customers to the new platform in late summer.

"We've built this platform purposefully to set an entirely new standard for what users can get from their libraries," said Marty Kahn, ProQuest CEO. "That means we're aiming at a moving target. We're uncovering both needs and new technologies we can use to address them every day. The new platform is a living service and there's much more to come. In fact, we're doing some very interesting things with visualization technology that we'll announce yet this summer."

The platform's all-new technology architecture is built from scratch and designed "for purpose"-each feature addresses specific needs-and avoids added bells and whistles that don't add value to the user's research process. The agile development process was informed by "personas"-a dozen highly detailed user profiles-and regular testing with live subjects from every user group. The platform is a blend of new technologies and user-favorites from other legacy ProQuest and its brand family platforms.

ProQuest Extended Search will enable libraries to enrich results by building connections to databases from other providers, using Serials Solution's clustering technology. Libraries will simply choose the databases they want to add from thousands of options and Serials Solutions will manage the connections for them. The new platform's sophisticated technology tools will enable users to save, organize, and manipulate all the content-whether from ProQuest or not-in personal accounts.

Source: ProQuest