NEWS

ProQuest Helps Libraries Meet Demand for Chinese-language Resources

New selection of ebooks expands company’s rich selection of research materials

ProQuest is collaborating with Asian Studies scholars, librarians and Chinese-language publishers to offer a selection of Chinese- language ebooks, enabling libraries to provide resources demanded by researchers. The growing collection spans thousands of titles available on the Ebook Central®, ebrary® and EBL platforms. The platforms’ multi-language interfaces accommodate readers of traditional and simplified Chinese, and other languages.

Driven to stay on top of evolving industry demands, ProQuest recently surveyed academic librarians about their needs and usage regarding non-English content. The results demonstrate a strong interest in making Chinese-language content available to address the needs of their researchers:

• 47% of respondents purchase Chinese-language content.
• Nearly 30% say Chinese-language content is among users’ most requested non-English language content
• 24% say they’re not adequately supporting patrons’ needs for Chinese-language content.
• When asked what non-English digital format resources they would like to offer, 30% said frontlist ebooks and 25% said backlist ebooks.

To make curating a collection more straightforward, ProQuest has simplified the selection and acquisition processes for libraries by partnering with an ever-growing list of distinguished Chinese-language publishers including Peking University Press, China Social Science Press, Zhonghua Book Company, Tianjin Ancient Books Publishing House, People’s Literature Publishing House, Higher Education Press, China Intercontinental Press, and many more. Librarians can choose from thousands of trusted titles to create a customized ebook collection tailored to the specific needs of their researchers, within their institution’s budget. They may also choose to offer titles under ProQuest’s Demand-Driven Acquisition model, where titles are only triggered for purchase if a title is used.

“We’re continually growing our selection of content in multiple languages so librarians have the greatest flexibility in meeting the content demands of their communities and institutions,” said Anna Bullard, Senior Director of Content Strategy, ProQuest Books.  “By working in partnership with publishers and librarians, we’re able to bring the highest quality works in the topic areas that researchers are demanding.”   

ProQuest’s Chinese-language ebook content is an expansion of a larger program. The company’s iconic Dissertations and Theses database – PQDT Global™ – includes approximately 110,000 works written in Chinese from scholars at 110 institutions in China. A partnership with Chinese university consortia CALIS will bring tens of thousands of additional graduate works into this database. Additional resources curated for Asian Studies scholars include Chinese Newspapers Collection in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database, Asian & European Business collection and the East & South Asia database.

http://www.proquest.com