[Genealib] No more remote access to HQ

[Joy Rich]

Quite a few genealogical societies have been offering remote access to ProQuest's 
HeritageQuest Online databases and ProQuest's Historical Newspapers, resulting in many new 
members. ProQuest based a society's annual subscription fee on the number of users.

ProQuest's letter to those societies announcing the end of remote access to HeritageQuest 
Online and the historical newspapers says "After a review of 2005 usage statistics, we 
confirmed that genealogical and historical societies are the heaviest users of ProQuest 
databases. This usage is well beyond the assumptions under which the pricing was initially 
developed and before gaining the experience of working with these societies."

Godfrey Memorial Library paid $6,000 to ProQuest to provide Godfrey Scholars access to The 
New York Times. This year, ProQuest wanted asked Godfrey for $110,000 for it. Some portion 
of the increase can be attributed to a growth in Godfrey's membership and some to ProQuest 
learning what the market will bear.

Joy Rich
Brooklyn, NY

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Message: 8
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:55:56 -0700
From: "Heather McLeland-Wieser" <Heather.McLeland-Wieser at spl.org>
Subject: Re: [Genealib] No more remote access to HQ
To: <genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu>
Message-ID: <448D2C1C020000AF0000C807 at mailsrvclu.spl.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Laura;
As sympathetic as I am to the problems this is going to cause for Societies, I doubt 
seriously if there are many societies that could pay the regular library rate for remote 
access.  As a medium- sized public library working through a state-wide consortium (which 
gets us a substantial discount) we pay $6,000 a year to offer our patrons remote access. 
And we are expecting an increase this year.  HeritageQuest's parent company ProQuest is in 
serious financial difficulties and there has been talk of eliminating some of their 
offerings.  Hopefully HeritageQuest isn't one of those under threat but when I read Dick's 
blog I wondered.  Other ProQuest databases cost the library between 9-12 thousand per 
year!
Heather McLeland-Wieser

>>> laurajs at pacbell.net 06/07/06 7:49 PM >>>
Hi, all:
    Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter announced today that
ProQuest will no longer permit genealogy societies to offer remote
access to Heritage Quest (after expiration of current contracts).
This is going to hurt genealogy societies nationwide a lot --
offering HQ helps draw new members.  The announced reason for doing
so seems specious:  PQ says it is losing money on this highly popular
service.  That just means they failed to price it correctly, and that
can be changed.  In turn, gen. societies can raise their dues a bit.
    Does anyone out there want to organize some sort of protest?  At
least add your opinion to Dick's blog:  http://blog.eogn.com/
eastmans_online_ genealogy/.  Thanks.
    Laura Spurrier