NEWS

ProQuest hosts delegations from US and China
as part of ProQuest Library and Education Programme

Cambridge, United Kingdom - ProQuest was delighted to host two diverse groups of librarians in training from the UK and US and a publishing group from China as part of its Library and Education programmes.   Staff and students were welcomed from the Pratt School of Information and Library Studies, New York along with staff from the University College London's Department of Information Studies and the Centre of Publishing.  Twenty-six editors and publishers from Higher Education Press, one of the biggest academic publishers in China, were also welcomed as part of their study tour to learn about best practice in international academic publishing.   Further groups and activities involving libraries and education are planned for the coming year.

Anthony Watkinson, Director of Industry Liaison and Senior Lecturer at UCL's Department of Information Studies said, 'This was the third year that the Centre for Publishing/Department of Information Studies has brought to ProQuest in Cambridge a group of MA Library and Information Science students from the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York. The quality of the offerings to libraries by ProQuest and the way these offerings are explained so well and the Cambridge staff always enthrall the students and make this visit a high spot of the two week course. Thank you again ProQuest.'

Presentations given to group of librarians and students from the US and the UK included, 'ProQuest's Digitisation Programme', 'ProQuest and the Changing Aggregation Business' and the 'Paley Center Seminars'.  Students were impressed and inspired by the Paley Center Seminars, and blogged about this immediately after the presentation.  The Paley Center Seminars is an online video archive of the acclaimed seminar series hosted by the The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television & Radio) in New York and Los Angeles.

The seminars feature the leading names in television giving behind-the-scenes insights into the creative process, together with industry experts discussing topics such as the impact of the media on contemporary society.  Subjects covered range from presidential advertising campaigns to reality shows, from the writing process of The Wire or Heroes, to Madeline Allbright and Henry Kissinger on the media and foreign policy. The complete collection will include more than 300 hours of video, plus additional new content added each year in regular updates.

The large delegation from Beijing were particularly interested in a range of publishing topics from digitisation to Global Content Alliances, from building a product to taking a product a market as well as the current challenges faced by the market and the ways that ProQuest is addressing these challenges.  ProQuest's research and development team have recently completed a study into the extent to which researchers' behaviours differ between Europe, USA and Asia.  This research was presented at the recent LIBER conference in Toulouse, and will be released more widely shortly.

Rachel Maund, from Marketability (the company responsible for organising HEP's study programme) said, 'Higher Education Press are one of China's most successful and forward-thinking publishers, whose issues and challenges closely reflect those of similar companies in the West. They were particularly interested in ProQuest's digitisation drive and cited their visit as one of the highlights of their two week programme. These events are a fantastic way for business ideas to be exchanged, to the mutual advantage of both parties.'

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