[Genealib] ProQuest Terminates Remote Access for Genealogy Societies

[Joy Rich]

On June 6th, Dick Eastman wrote this in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter at 
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/06/proquest_termin.html .

"ProQuest announced today that they will be eliminating one valuable genealogy service. 
The company will no longer offer remote, in-home access to the members of genealogical and 
historical societies."

I wasn't sure if that meant that ProQuest would be discontinuing in-home access to the 
historical newspapers and HeritageQuest Online both. The post below to the Godfrey 
Memorial Library Help List seems to indicate that the answer might very well be yes.

Presumably, ProQuest has already notified those of you who work at genealogical and 
historical societies that you won't be allowed to offer in-home access after a certain 
date. If they haven't, you may want to check with them.

Joy Rich
Brooklyn, NY

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http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GODFREY-LIBRARY-HELP/2006-06/1149886682

"I am writing to you because our records show that you have used SABR's subscription to 
either ProQuest Historical Newspapers or Heritage Quest in the past six months.

Recently ProQuest sent SABR a letter explaining a new business decision to no longer offer 
remote access to genealogical or historical societies, beginning at the end of the current 
subscription year.

For SABR, that means beginning on January 1, 2007, SABR members will no longer have remote 
access to the various historical newspapers to which SABR subscribes, nor will we have 
access to the HeritageQuest databases.

SABR will continue to seek out and make available research assets and tools to fulfill our 
mission of helping people do baseball research. The money currently spent on these 
subscriptions will either be used for such purposes or retained in our war chest for 
future uses.

ProQuest also points out that "a key component of the ProQuest mission is to provide 
public library users with historical newspaper and genealogy content, as well as other 
data, through their local public library, either on-site or remotely."

They continue that "[l]iterally millions of people are now enjoying free access to 
ProQuest content through their local library." SABR will attempt to make members aware of 
which libraries make remote access available to library card holders. Already, we know 
that Cleveland Public Library and the Boston Public Library have some ProQuest databases 
available with remote access for current library card holders.

Thank you for your support of SABR!

Sincerely,
John Zajc
Executive Director
Society for American Baseball Research
812 Huron Rd E #719
Cleveland OH 44115
216-575-0500