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????

[theKiwi]

Without a doubt ProQuests largest expense would be paying for the bandwidth that gets used up by people viewing images from their servers.

I have no idea what this might cost, but if you 're interested try finding out what an OC3 (155 Mbps) or OC12 (622 Mbps) line might cost per month to have installed to a building in your neighbourhood so that you'd have enough bandwidth available to pump out search results and images to probably thousands of people at a time.

Roger

[M. Diane Rogers]

I agree with many of the comments above.

Dick, you are putting a positive spin on this, (and that's ok!). Yes, it's good to investigate what public & academic libraries have to offer (although it's not free, someone must be paying taxes, etc.) but I urge genealogists to look first to genealogical societies & institutions. They know our needs best; they do their best, often on the proverbial shoestring. Don't give up on the Godfrey library, for example. That library is adding lots of interesting material to 'replace' the loss of Heritage Quest.

My idea about indexes is that if one is good, two or more are better. I use ancestry.com but I'd love access to Heritage Quest. I believe it has the most current PERSI database, for instance, & the U.S.A. census images I've seen seem better.

I live in Canada & as far as I know, there is no access to Heritage Quest in Canada. I did write ProQuest some time ago asking for info about this, but received no reply.

The larger library systems, presumably, as more focused geographically and with a less concentrated group of genealogical clients, can afford to pay their service fees. My understanding is that ProQuest did offer to continue service to at least some genealogical institutions, but at a prohibitive cost. Now apparently ProQuest has realized that's not feasible. I think it's downright odd that ProQuest didn't realize how well used these databases would be if the company allowed genealogical societies & institutions to offer on-line access to genealogists.
I suspect that the overwhelmingly positive response by those accessing HeritageQuest through genealogical societies & institutions has shown evidence of a committed public for ProQuest products & that's why libraries have 'signed on'. That exposure must have been worth a lot to the company AND still could be in the future if they were able to work out a better business plan that included the specialized genealogical societies & institutions.

[Jason Presley]

I'm sure this decision on ProQuest's part is a direct result of their having to restate their earnings for the past few years. Like Dick says, it was an experiment to determine the demand and feasibility of in-home service, but apparently, no one was paying attention to the results of that experiment until years after the company had already hemorrhaged millions of dollars. This all probably goes directly to those accounting issues they're being investigated for. Had they been on top of it instead of trying to cheat their shareholders, they could've simply raised the prices for their services a bit each year to slow the bleeding or break even, but it looks like they got caught in the dot-com bubble mentality.

However, since they're now attempting to clean up the mess they're in, I wouldn't be surprised to see them return to the genealogical society in-home market in the next couple of years once they've got their collective heads on straight. Maybe they could relaunch their efforts to regain the in-home market with the addition of the Canadian census or actually finishing the indexing of the US census they already have (which apparently hasn't been updated in 2 years).

[Karen Stuart]

What expenses? Others have mentioned equipment and bandwidth, but I'd guess that the most fearsome expense for ProQuest/Heritage Quest is the high level of user support needed to support society (and potentially individual) subscribers.

Think how grudgingly hardware and software manufacturers provide end-user support. Public libraries are usually big enough to have at least one professional systems person on staff; societies often are not, so their user complaints go straight to ProQuest, a company that has traditionally sold "to the trade," and has not been set up to deal with end-users.

Well-intentioned but uninformed individual users have unleashed a torrent of nasty, paranoid complaints against ProQuest and other providers (the archives of the Godfrey-Lib-H listserve are replete with examples); many of those users would have no problem if they would just learn how to configure their PCs' firewalls. Why doesn't PQ/HQ seem to want our business? Exactly who WOULD willingly take on that type of user support?

Heritage Quest's census interface and image quality are immeasurably superior to Ancestry's, and it would be a great loss if it were no longer available (and I do worry about that possibility). I don't think, however, that directing more nasty letters and protests to the company will aid the cause.

Better to turn that energy toward support and appreciation of the public libraries that DO provide the service, and toward encouraging the ones that do not have it to become subscribers.

[Damaris Fish]

A comment above about the libraries in Oklahoma: Oklahoma City Library offers a non-resident library card for a fee (comparable to what they figure they are subsidized by residents?). See this link -
http://www.metrolibrary.org/mls/library_card.htm#obtain
And they offer in home access to HQ. Tulsa's libraries however do not provide in-home access to HQ, only in-library access. See -
http://cybermars.mls.lib.ok.us/marsiis/cybermars.asp?WCI=XML_Databases&WCU
How about the LDS Church offer to administer the HQ resources & keep them online? Ha, Ha.

[Bob peters]

Interesting comments all. One salient point is missing. It makes absolutely no difference what Proquest opts to do for business reason. Since the advent of computers there have been and always will be server problems, software glitches, and programming errors. with a little bit of sleuthing on the www HQ, Historical newspapers, and ancestry can be obtained free from the comfort of your home.

[Mary D. Taffet]

ProQuest could solve their business profit problem and make individuals happy if they allowed individuals to subscribe directly to those databases. They would get far more money from individuals than they ever could from societies. While I tend to use Ancestry.com for census records, I really miss the ability to view the historical New York Times pages that used to be available through Godfrey.

When most businesses discover a huge market for their products, they go after the market rather than abandoning it. I think ProQuest should do the same.

[Cheryl Bowden]

While discussing this situation with the owner of the genealogical library that I subscribed through, he told me that while he was talking to a Proquest representitive he stated that he would just contact Ancestry.com and discuss business dealings with them. The representitive from Proquest then chuckled and replied........you will still be talking to me! My genealogical library society(don't know if it is a good idea to mention names or not)very recently bought over $4,000 worth of cd's from Proquest for his genealogical library and then days later, Proquest dropped the bomb.

[Candy Jens]

Let me get this straight - Proquest gets x dollars from libraries and used to get y dollars from genie societies. x users accessed the material through the libraries, and y users through the societies. Their income was x+y dollars for x+y users.

Now they drop the genie societies and their income. Let's assume that almost all users find a library. Now they have x dollars but still x+y users - a net drop in income per user! Even if half the former users through the societies switch, they're making less per user, and less overall, than with the previous setup.

Odd? You bet!

[Karen Stanley]

I would like to point out that many genealogy societies contracted to subscribe to HQ with pricing based on their traditional membership numbers, then as soon as their subscriptions took effect, began to aggressively market their memberships using HQ as the primary draw. I won't comment on the ethics of this strategy, but regardless of the rights or wrongs, the strategy has backfired - I can see from many of the above postings that there are a lot of folks who joined ONLY for that reason, and will now drop their society memberships like hot potatoes.

I live in Texas and have access to HQ and the other ProQuest products through my public library. At the moment it's free, but if I moved to another state without access, I would cheerfully pay the $40/year fee to maintain my Texas library card. I also subscribe to Ancestry.com in order to have remote access and will continue to do so. Both services provide an excellent product and add daily to the total amount of historical content available to remote users. I am willing to pay for a quality product, and for the privilege of home access - which IS a privilege, not a right. Many folks spend more at Starbucks every month than I pay per year for that privilege.

I also belong to selected genealogy societies and intend to continue supporting them in the work they do to educate, preserve local history, publish, and support the genealogy profession. They deserve to be supported actively and not be reduced to a middleman in the online subscription market. And public libraries need our support, too - the decline in visits to public libraries' genealogy collections caused by the growing popularity of online genealogy is a real threat to the continued existence of those unique local repositories. That's an area where genealogy societies can get involved and make a real difference.

[Rex Bosse]

In many of the above posts, people have proposed various cost of doing individual business, but no one has combined those costs into an effective estimate, or compared it to the commercial large scale user - such as libraries. When you access PQ through the library, or a library portal, the library portal provides many expensive services. The library
1) manages internet traffic, limiting server traffic to an allowable level
2) provides virus protection, to stop individual computers from infecting a million user database
3) does all record keeping required to authenticate users
4) provides training and user support
5) does all bookkeeping for user accounts
6) provides a standard access configuration that doesn't need to adapt to multiple platforms "on the fly"
7) takes all the complaints from inept users, both through tech support and online criticisms
8) sets and enforces limits on user standards
and more

Now set an annual price on these
1) 1 $4000 server per 5000 patrons, plus 80 hours maintenance @ $30/hour
2) 1 virus site license, $2000 per 5000 patrons, plus 20 - 400 hours maintenance @ $30/hr
3) 1 data entry @ $18,000 salary + $ 7000 benefits per 60,000 accounts, plus one programmer @ $40,000 + $15,000 benefit per 100,000 accounts, plus the part time services of a system administrator @ $$$
4) 1 tech support staff $18,000 salary + $7,000 benefits per 40,000 accounts
5) 1 bookkeeper @ $25,000 salary + $10,000 benefits per 30,000 accounts
6) add the rest of the annual time for that system administrator named above, and a website designer/html coder @ $18,000
7) Oops, add another tech support staffer
8) Oh shoot, now we have Human Resources, Sales, Sys Admins, Managers, Upper level Execs and Secretaries in constant dispute

It's a wonder that Ancestry doesn't cost more - and an absolute dream that PQ offered all that for the paltry sum they charged. I wonder if there would be any fewer screams if they changed their price to $350 per year - a more reasonable cost structure given the huge response they garnered balanced by the resulting need to expand their system and business model so rapidly.

Any business must choose how rapidly they expand, and they always run a high risk if that expansion is both large and fast. The huge response forced PQ to decide, and they chose what I consider to be a wise route, to back off and, possibly, rebuild and enlarge their system. The other option, to raise prices substantially, hire large numbers of people, and attempt a large infrastructure expansion while on shaky monetary ground, would almost certainly have caused failure.

Kudos to PQ for continuing library access, and here's hoping they return to the field of single user data access when they are more prepared for the popularity of their product.

[nyer]

ProQuest Historical Newspapers in Connecticut

I have a Connecticut library card but am unable to figure out how to get remote access to the ProQuest *Historical* (as opposed to post-1980) Newspapers through the I-Conn site (which is what Richard's link says to do). Am I the only one? If anyone knows how to get at the Historical Newspapers (as opposed to Heritage Quest generally) I would be most grateful if they would share.

Many thanks.

[Karen Stanley]

Re: ProQuest Historical Newspapers in Connecticut

It appears from the iConn site that their subscription to ProQuest's historical newspapers collection is limited to the Hartford Courant. You can find a press release about the addition of this database to the iConn collection at: http://www.proquest.com/pressroom/pressrelease/06/20060120h.shtml

[Sherry Diegel]

I find it most difficult that a company with an extremely popular "buzzing" item has chosen to discontinue that "path." The reason being they did not project the cost high enough! Really! Is there a "backroom" to this issue, or it is not feasible to INCREASE the cost? If one's local library does not provide Heritage Quest, is consideration ever given to allowing a local genealogical society?

Thank you.

[Wayne Kempton]

Can anyone tell me which public libraries in New York City and / or Westchester County offer access to the Proquest New York Times database remotely to card holders?
We are losing a valuable research tool in April when the contract between the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society and Proquest expires.

Wayne Kempton
Archivist
Episcopal Diocese of New York

[Dick Eastman]

You can find a partial list of libraries that offer in-home remote access to HeritageQuest Online on the Encyclopedia of Genealogy at at http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline.

Most of them offer the access free of charge.

- Dick Eastman

[Ronda Berry]

I live in Alabama, and my local county library says they can not afford a Heritage Quest Subscription. I had previously tried to get a personal subscription, but Heritage Quest does not allow that. I was so pleased to discover I could get an on-line subscription through a genealogical society- an now that is all coming to an end. What am I to do???

[Dick Eastman]

---> now that is all coming to an end. What am I to do???

The Encyclopedia of Genealogy at http://www.eogen.com lists 7 public library systems in Alabama that offer FREE remote access to HeritageQuest Online. It is possible that one of them covers your area.

For instance, the Jefferson County Library Cooperative covers 20 counties in Alabama. Some of the other libraries may also cover multiple counties.

In most cases, you obtain a library card from a participating library and then you can access HeritageQuest Online from home. FREE.

I do the same thing by using a library card I obtained from a library that is a couple of counties distant from me.

- Dick Eastman