ProQuest Terminates Remote Access for Genealogy Societies

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.

ProQuest is the company that provides HeritageQuest Online, a collection of online databases that contain images of original U.S. census records, Revolutionary War pension applications, more than 20,000 local and family history books, Freedman's Bank records, and more. In the past few years, I have written a number of articles about HeritageQuest Online's great products. You can find my articles at http://tinyurl.com/rqg9x.

While not available directly to the general public, tens of thousands of genealogists access this huge online resource daily. There are essentially three ways to access the data at HeritageQuest Online:

1. Go to a local public library or to a genealogical or historical society that subscribes to the service, and use the computers there. Access is available at thousands of locations around the United States.
2. Many public libraries offer remote, in-home access. That is, if you have a library card from a subscribing library that offers this option, you may use your home computer to first access the library's web site, log on, and then click on an icon to be connected to HeritageQuest Online. In this case, the local public library serves as a "gateway" to HeritageQuest Online. Once connected, you have the same access as if you were in the library.
3. Until now, a number of genealogy societies, historical societies, and private genealogy libraries also offered remote, in-home access in the same manner as do many public libraries. Again, you have the same access as if you were in the society's offices. You first connect via the Internet to the society's or library's web site, log on, and then click on an icon to be connected to HeritageQuest Online.

Today, ProQuest announced that the company is dropping option #3 above. The company will no longer offer remote, in-home access to the members of genealogical or historical societies.

Nothing is changing in options #1 and #2 listed above. Subscribing societies and private libraries will continue to offer access to HeritageQuest Online from within their own buildings. Public libraries will continue to have an option to offer remote, in-home access to library patrons. The only change is for those who obtained remote, in-home access via a genealogy society or private genealogy library.

Each society has a contract with ProQuest for these services. The termination date of the remote access service will be on whatever date that contract expires. As a result, a few genealogy societies may be able to offer remote, in-home access for nearly another year while others will be dropping the service within a few weeks. The dates all depend upon the expiration dates of the various contracts.

Commentary by Dick Eastman:

When I first heard that ProQuest was going to drop in-home access for members of genealogical and historical societies, I was not too surprised. I knew from previous conversations that remote access for genealogical and historical society members was an experiment when it was started a couple of years ago. ProQuest's primary marketplace has always been public libraries, not societies.

ProQuest had little experience with genealogists or with genealogy societies. I assume that pricing and projected expenses were based on some form of "best guess" method at that time, subject to change as the company gained experience with this new marketplace.

I had an opportunity to discuss all this a few days ago with two senior managers at ProQuest: Chris Cowan, Vice President of Publishing and Rod Gauvin, Senior Vice President of Publishing. My earlier assumptions were confirmed. In fact, early in our conversation it became obvious that these two gentlemen and their colleagues had not arrived at the decision quickly or easily.

Both Chris and Rod assured me that ProQuest values the genealogy community. In fact, they have been delighted and amazed at the reception that HeritageQuest Online received in the genealogy marketplace.

The usage of these genealogy databases from public libraries has been more or less consistent with that of other databases that ProQuest offers through libraries. The one thing about HeritageQuest Online that was radically different was the remote, in-home usage offered through genealogical and historical societies: this usage far surpassed anything that ProQuest had expected. Obviously, this high usage also creates higher expenses for the company providing the data.

Chris Cowan quoted from a letter he sent to all genealogical societies and libraries that offer HeritageQuest Online:

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.  ProQuest continues to absorb high costs to provide the data at a significant financial loss because of the relatively low price points offered to societies.

In other words, gung-ho genealogists loved this offering. We genealogists used the ProQuest databases for many hours, far above the usage that ProQuest experiences with its hundreds of other databases. Unfortunately, this increases ProQuest's expenses, and yet the prices charged for access has not produced enough revenue to cover those higher-than-expected expenses.

While Chris and Rod did not state it as bluntly as I will, it is obvious to me and to almost every other person in the business world that no company can long afford "to provide the data at a significant financial loss". Genealogists should not be surprised to see this access go away.

Chris Cowan and Rod Gauvin also strongly stressed that there is no change for public libraries. Library patrons can continue to access HeritageQuest Online both from within library building as well as from home, if the local library offers such access. Indeed, thousands of public libraries around the United States do so. While you may no longer access HeritageQuest Online via your genealogy society's web site, you probably can do the same (for less money) from a local library's web site.

Indeed, I had access to HeritageQuest Online via three different paths: two via genealogy societies I belong to and one via a public library near me. I will now lose two of those access paths, but the third remains in place for me and will work well. You may find the same is true for you.

In fact, Chris Cowan's letter to ProQuest's society customers states:

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.  Our business model has been created to ensure that public libraries subscribing to ProQuest products can provide access to their end-users.  By working through public libraries, we are able to keep the cost of ProQuest content affordable to individual libraries and free to their patrons.

After my conversation with the ProQuest VPs, I decided to investigate the alternative access methods available. The Encyclopedia of Genealogy has long maintained a list of organizations that offer in-home access to HeritageQuest Online, public libraries and genealogy societies alike. The page is available at http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline. A quick scan of that page shows that remote, in-home access to HeritageQuest Online remains available free of charge to:

• All residents of California
• All residents of Colorado
• Any Connecticut Public Library Card holder (library cards are free)
• All residents of Delaware
• Most Florida residents, but not all, have free in-home access to HeritageQuest Online through Florida's library cooperatives.
• Hawaiian residents may obtain free access through the Hawaii State Public Library System.
• All Kansas residents have remote access to HeritageQuest Online. You will need a Kansas Library Card, available at any Public Library.
• Any Maryland Public Library Card holder automatically has remote access thru Sailor, a project of Maryland Public Libraries. Contact your local library to obtain a card in order to gain access to all Sailor resources.
• All Massachusetts residents can obtain free remote access to HQ using the Boston Public Library's online gateway.
• All Nebraska residents have remote access to HeritageQuest Online via the Nebraska Library Commission, operated by the State of Nebraska. Your Nebraska driver's license number serves as a library card and will give you free access to many online databases.
• All New Hampshire residents have remote access to HeritageQuest Online through the state's NHewLink provided by the NH State Library.
• Virtually all libraries in the state of North Carolina offer HeritageQuest Online from the library buildings. Many of those libraries also offer remote access, although not all do so.
• All Ohio residents can obtain free remote access to HQ. Most local public libraries subscribe. If your local library does not, all Ohio residents can get a card from the Columbus Metropolitan Library, which does give you access.
• Pennsylvania residents who have library cards with ACCESS PA stickers, but do not have remote access thru their own library, may be able to get a free card from one of the participating libraries within the system.
• All South Dakota residents can obtain free online access via the South Dakota State Library.
• Texas residents who are registered patrons of public or academic libraries can obtain free remote access to HeritageQuest Online through the TexShare Databases program. Access is available free of charge.
• HeritageQuest Online can be accessed from any Utah public library & all but a few from your home. How you get into the databases depends on where you live and which library is offering access. Check with your local library for details.
• All Vermont residents may obtain remote, in-home access to HeritageQuest Online via the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. The required library cards are free to those in surrounding towns while more distant Vermont residents will need to pay $12.50 for a card.
• All residents of Wyoming can have remote access through the state library.

The above is not a complete list. Indeed, it does not list any of the thousands of local libraries that provide free remote access to HeritageQuest Online. However, it does show that free or very low cost access to HeritageQuest Online is available to millions of Americans, even after the genealogical and historical societies are not able to offer access. Further details may be found at http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline

All in all, this will be an inconvenience for many genealogists, but not a disaster. In fact, I suspect it will be a pleasant surprise for many to discover they already have free access to something they used to pay for.

ProQuest's reduction in service options provides an excellent opportunity to get to know your local public library. That sounds like a good thing to me.

Comments

[Anne Gometz]

Dick,
HeritageQuest Online was added this year to the databases available statewide in North Carolina through NC Live. Anybody with a library card should be able to get a password for at home access from their local library.

[Paul K. Graham]

This may be just me, but if I had a business that was wildly popular at a low price and I was losing money, I would raise the price to turn the popularity into a profit center. Raising the price would mean some people stop subscribing, but there is some point of equilibrium that would give ProQuest subscribers *and* a profit at the same time. Just look at Ancestry.com!

I personally love having access to data at home and I personally hate going to a library to get access to data. I am more than happy to pay for that data access, especially given the cost of gas! I think ProQuest should keep offering HeritageQuest. They just need to figure out what it would cost to make a decent profit, tell all the organizations the new price, then see how many drop the program. If a whole bunch drop, then it will have been shown that genealogists are just cheap. But if only a small number drop and ProQuest can be profitable with HeritageQuest, I say go for it!

[Michael White]

Well put some Google Ads on it! ;)

[Heather McLeland-Wieser]

If the societies price was set anywhere near the price that libraries pay, I would be astonished if more than a tiny handful of societies could afford it. Washington State libraries get a special rate through the State Library and the local libraries still pay thousands of dollars a year. We consider it well worth it but still...:o

[Dan Shire]

This becomes a big obstacle for Canadians like me - about 1/2 my ancestors came from the USA (NY, VT, ND, WA, and a few other northern states I haven't determined yet). My Godfrey Library membership was great, but it just expired and I doubt that I'll renew it since the census access has been dropped.

I'm not aware of any public libraries in my area of Ontario that provide access to Heritage Quest, either remotely or on-site. Looks like it comes down to a membership to ancestry.com now.

I agree with Anne (above) - they could have refined their business plan to set appropriate (profitable) price points and had more satisfied customers.

[Damaris Fish]

When we moved to Oregon from Utah I was very grateful our new local library also had Heritage Quest access (before I notified our old library in Utah that we had moved out of their area!). If someone does not have a local library HQ subscription access is this move by ProQuest supposed to encourage genealogists to lobby their community administration to sign up? Out of the goodness of their hearts or how will they justify the purchase if they have gotten by without the expenditure? Then what's the next game? Are there Public Libraries which allow signing up for a library card by non-residents? Sign up as a student & subsidize your HQ access through a college library? HQ is a tremendous resource! Lots and lots of thanks to PQ, but I can't begin to afford the wonderful benefit I have received up to now....

[Judy Burns]

Oklahoma City Metro Library offers remote Heritage Quest access with a library card. For some people, a subscription to Ancestry will be the answer.

[Graeme Simpson]

Some gene groups in the USA would accept membership from overseas which included online home Heritage Quest access (not me personally) - so what about those genies living overseas (let alone Canada next door) ? How do they get access ? Seems like a good move to promote Ancestry.com to me!

[Loretta Evans, AG]

Heritage Quest is available through many libraries in Idaho. One reference librarian in Idaho Falls suggested to me that if the local library did not provide Heritage Quest, several patrons could get together and offer to underwrite the cost of the service. In Idaho, the cost to a local library is reasonably small, because of state support. I think the cost is based on the number of library patrons. If ten people in a small town wanted the service, they might be able to persuade the local library to add the resource.

[Gary Turner]

Ancestry.com offers much better search results of the Census. I have found people on Ancestry that I can not find on Heritage. Even when I enter the same informtation in the search engines. Our local library has Heritage available online, i wish they had better searching capabilities.

[Joy Rich]

Is ProQuest also eliminating remote, in-home access to the historical newspapers (New York Times, etc.) to the members of genealogical and historical societies?

[Eric Head]

Similar to Paul's comments above, I am surprised ProQuest did not evaluate the situation and at least attempt to offer the service to the Genealogy/Historical Societies at a fee that would at least allow them to break even if not make a profit. Dropping the service seems to be the solution of last resort once it has been determined the possibility of making a profit is not attainable.

I believe some public libaries allow people to purchase a library card on an annual basis for a modest fee so this might be a solution for those living in an area without HQ access.

[Dennis Jenkins]

It seems like there is a "Catch 22" here. I access Heritage Quest from a library system in Colorado. I have encouraged others to use it or the library may not see the need to continue to subscribe. Now it seems that if too many people use it, ProQuest might consider dropping the ability for home use by library card holders.

Also, I would add that when I am visiting back in Minnesota I am able to get Heritage Quest at my hometown's library system. I am not sure how much of Minnesota has it though.

[JohnR]

Have Heritage Quest forgotten that more people live outside the US than in it? I think its a great business decision to cut off 80% of your potential customers. Heritage Quest seem not to want any more business for when asked "How may I access/purchase your product" they fail to respond.

[Marjorie Jodoin]

I discovered by accident that one of the Genealogy.com subscriptions is actually HQ in disguise [they don't say that's what it is, but when you access it, it's the same site]. I think its the Family & Local Histories, annual subscription $79.99, but there's also a monthly option for $9.99. I have HQ through the Seattle Public Library, so I dropped that Gen.com subscription, but kept my Genealogy Library subscription.

[HS Lanham]

Can individuals subscribe directly to the service?

[Marilyn]

I use Ancestry.com for their census records but they are NOT infallible. I have found several times where they have actually SKIPPED a census page and I have had to go to the library and look at HeritageQuest for the missing page! They sometimes have clearer pages for the 1900 and 1910 censuses that are unreadable at Ancestry. I wish our library had remote access.....

[Joy Rich]

HS Lanham asked if individuals can subscribe directly to the service. ProQuest and HeritageQuest Online can't be subscribed to by individuals.

[Alice Kern]

I'm really unhappy about this. Here in Pennsylvania some counties have HQ access and some county library systems simply cannot afford it. We are not allowed to get a library card from a county where we don't reside. I received the letter from Chris Cowan just this week. We are a small group of rooms on the second floor of the public library. Our computers share the same DSL line as the public library downstairs. We are a county research facility, not an historical society and not a genealogical society but we are losing HQ anyway. I can't help but shake the feeling that something else is going on here.

[Priscilla Paul]

Right now I pay $35.00 per year to the Godfrey Library and I was just thinking about paying $75.00 to the NEHGS so I could continue access to Heritage Quest when my Godfrey Subscription runs out. I guess I won't do that now. My local library does not offer in home access and if you go to the library you have to fight for a computer and then are time limited. I do not understand why ProQuest can't sell to individuals. I know they would have to put some money in for upgrades etc., but I bet a lot of people who can't get to libraries would be willing to pay anywhere from $25.00 to 100.00 per year for this service. If enough people did this ProQuest would have plenty of money to offset the cost. Maybe I am just simplifying this but tens of thousands of people are going to be very unhappy about this, to say nothing of the impact on our individual genealogy research and the genealogical community as a whole. This is indeed a sad turn of events.

[Tom Doherty]

ProQuest has managed to find a solution to their high market demand "problem" by snubbing their ultimate consumers and denying many of them access to their valuable product (census, newspapers, pension, etc.) instead of developing a more creative and profitable marketing plan. That's sad.

I agree with Paul K. Graham [whose note appears above (June 06, 2006 at 06:07 PM)], that ProQuest needs to change their business plan, possibly using Google as a model and sell ads for searches. Genealogists should be a describable market segment. That way, ProQuest would have an additional revenue stream and more happy campers.

For the U.S. census, ancestry.com has a better and much more complete index; however, HeritageQuest's images are in general (not always) of higher quality AND they are more easily downloadable as the far more useable pdf files. In addition, while ancestry has continued to improve its census index, HeritageQuest does not seem to have made any improvements for years. Nonetheless, searching HeritageQuest's census index (for the years where they even have an index) can provide some good hits not obtainable using ancestry.com.

My general process* for census searches is to first search in ancestry.com to find the page, then browse for that same page in HeritageQuest, so I can save the census sheet in the much better and often higher quality pdf format. [Note: While it's possible to print to a pdf file in ancestry.com, their pdf images are generally about 4 times larger and of generally lower quality than those from HeritageQuest.]
* exception: if HeritageQuest has an index for that year and the person I'm searching for has an easy to spell surname, I'll use HeritageQuest first.

ProQuest (the parent company of HeritageQuest) seems so poorly managed (it's stock closed today at 11.29 down from a 52 week high of 36.95) that I have been thinking they would soon go bankrupt and/or be bought out, possibly the genealogically valuable assets by ancestry.com who knows how to market to genealogists. However, that would likely result in the loss of the pdf save, as ancestry.com doesn't seem to think pdf downloading is important enough to offer it.

Alternatively, what happens if ProQuest refuses to change their business plan to capture that increased market demand AND removes remote access to public libraries. That would be another major blow to genealogists.

While my census research is hindered, I really empathize with folks who live in a place where remote access to the census is no longer available to them. Fortunately, this is not a major concern to me, because I subscribe to ancestry.com.

ProQuest's Historical Newspaper Collection
My major loss, even before this latest ProQuest decision, is the remote access to ProQuest's Historical Newspaper Collection (including the Atlanta Constitution (1868-1925), Boston Globe (1872-1922), Chicago Tribune (1890-1985), LA Times (1881-1985), NY Times (1851-2001), Washington Post (1877-1988). Godfrey used to offer all of these, but (as I understand it) ProQuest's price hike for continuing service was much more than Godfrey could justify, and Godfrey was the only place I know of that offered all these newspapers.

ProQuest's OCR generated index to the Historical Newspapers and the newspaper images themselves are a very valuable asset. Even though there are many appearances of a name in the newspaper that are not found in current newspaper indexes, better indexes require improved fast scan OCR technology and in some cases a very costly re-microfilming.

The few public libraries who offer any access to ProQuest's Historical Newspapers only offer the most local of ProQuest's historical newspapers, and many of these libraries do not offer access to non-residents.

[Joy Rich]

ProQuest still provides access to the historical New York Times to individuals.

How's this for a bargain :-( For $3.95 per article, you can purchase an article from PQ's Article Archive, 1851-1980. You can view it for 90 days. Or, you can buy a pack of four, ten, or twenty-five articles that can be viewed for a certain number of days.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/offers.html

[Carolyn Conner]

I also am very disappointed in this move. I joined the California Genealogy Society to be able to access this data base. I find Ancestry getting more and more expensive and getting out of my budget. I had to drop the census subscription because of the price. I wish they had a monthly plan that didn't automatically sign you up each month. It is so hard if you can't afford 1 month and they charge you anyway. Some of the librarys that I have found make you come in person to get a library card and this is impossible because of the distance. Oh well, just one more thing that I won't be able to use for research!

[Laura Spurrier]

I have a lot of trouble with your argument that there's nothing the genealogical community can do! Maybe enough public pressure -- lots of it -- can make ProQuest reconsider. As it is, that organization comes across as more than a little stupid for not anticipating the enormous demand correctly and setting their prices for remote access via gen. societies at the right level. I'm sure a lot of societies would be willing to raise their dues by, say, $5./yr. in order to continue to offer this service. My group, the Calif. Gen. Soc., has gained members simply by offering remote access to HQ, and I'm sure that is true for many, many other societies.

Also, how expensive can it be for ProQuest to add additional servers and customer support? The between-the-lines message that comes through is that they just don't want to do it anymore. What kind of business model do they have that they want to constrain access to one of their most popular products?

Finally, your argument that most people can get access via their public libraries is full of holes. I think many public libs. don't want to bother serving genealogists -- they hog the computers too much. My local lib. doesn't offer HQ, and your Eofgn list for Calif. covers perhaps only a quarter of the state's libraries.

Instead of acquiesing to ProQuest's decision, why not help organize the protest against it?

[Sharon Anderson]

I agree that this is a GREAT loss of resource to genealogists. I noticed that the senior managers quoted said only that their expenses were greater. What expenses? Would they need to install new/more servers? Additional servers and perhaps more time from a systems person (whom they already have) is the only expense. They are receiving thousands of dollars for yearly subscriptions from libraries (I've heard $15,000 p/year but can't confirm) and thousands from Socities. That is their business - selling database access yet each and every member of socities paid dues which in turn paid for the subscription to their databases. This argument is full of holes and I, for one, will not swallow it. From what I heard, they raised the price so astronomically high as to preclude the ability of any society to afford to continue subscriptions on purpose. I have also heard that they were concerned with the public having access to their databases (which was public information in the first place!) which has brought this all about. Perhaps some government officials have been complaining about the public having access to public information again????