[nfais-l] HW Wilson & EBSCO Publishing Announce Merger

[Bonnie Lawlor]

TWO NFAIS MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS ANNOUNCE MERGER:      H.W. WILSON  AND EBSCO
PUBLISHING

 

 

The news flash that appeared yesterday as a possible rumor in Against the
Grain (EBSCO to purchase H. W. Wilson) is true -see below for the  press
release that went out this morning.

 

Bonnie Lawlor

NFAIS Executive Director

 

 

***************************************************

 

EBSCO Publishing and The H.W. Wilson Company Make Joint Announcement of
Merger Agreement

~Two long-time industry leading vendors come together with goal of improving
services for libraries ~

 

Ipswich, Mass. - June 2, 2011 - EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) and The H.W. Wilson
Company (Wilson) have merged in what is being viewed by the companies as an
ideal match. This combination of organizations will allow the strengths of
each to benefit existing and forthcoming products & services. 

 

With 180 combined years of experience serving libraries, EBSCO and Wilson
have traveled similar paths, but have maintained unique advantages and
abilities. Libraries using products from either company will benefit as
improvements are made to the respective resources. Wilson database products
are known for their quality indexing. The Wilson subject thesaurus and
Wilson "names" authority file are largely considered the best of their kind,
and the WilsonWeb platform systematically leverages this valuable indexing
within its searching to provide high quality, relevant results to end users.
The Wilson controlled vocabularies will be integrated into EBSCO's
controlled vocabularies, resulting in improved subject indexing for EBSCO
databases. The EBSCOhostR platform will be enhanced to take advantage of
this indexing in its search and relevancy ranking algorithms. 

According to Tim Collins, President of EBSCO Publishing, this acquisition
leads directly to heightening the value and quality of EBSCO and Wilson
resources. "Upholding the integrity of the Wilson indexing is essential, and
extending these attributes to EBSCOhost resources is a critical part of this
venture. When it comes to thesauri (subjects and names), and how these are
leveraged, Wilson has long been an industry leader.  We look forward to
bringing this value and approach to all applicable EBSCOhost databases and
are excited about the benefits this will bring to EBSCOhost users. We are
also pleased to be able to add the Wilson databases into the EBSCO Discovery
Service search experience" 

 

Harry Regan, President & CEO for Wilson, commented, "EBSCO and H.W. Wilson
have been engaged as business partners for a number of years and are now
officially operating as one. The result will be a broader and deeper range
of products and services for the library reference community with
significantly added value. Both companies have had separate, distinctive
histories, but have always shared a common commitment for the highest order
of customer satisfaction."

 

Wilson's Vice President of Indexing & Editorial Services, Mark Gauthier, is
excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. "As a company, Wilson has
focused heavily on the quality of our indexing and how it impacts the search
experience. With EBSCOhost full-text and abstract/index databases, along
with EBSCO Discovery Service, EBSCO is really focusing on detailed editorial
value to truly take its services to new levels. We're excited about the
possibilities and what we can do together to benefit the research experience
for libraries."

 

All Wilson indexing, abstracts and full text will be fully searchable via
EBSCO Discovery Service for subscribers of Wilson databases. The addition of
Wilson's robust abstract/index records and unique full text will strengthen
EBSCO Discovery Service. 

 

Wilson databases will be loaded onto EBSCOhost over the coming months.
EBSCO will continue to maintain WilsonWeb until such time that all Wilson
databases are available on EBSCOhost and customers have been transitioned to
EBSCOhost.

Giving Back to the Library Community

Both EBSCO and The H.W. Wilson Foundation have a long-standing tradition of
providing financial and other support for libraries and library
organizations. The H.W. Wilson Foundation plans to continue its commitment
to its mission of supporting libraries and librarianship, as evidenced by
its numerous grants and long standing support of the John Cotton Dana Award
<http://www.hwwilson.com/jcdawards/nw_jcd.cfm> . 

  

About H.W. Wilson 
For more than a century, H.W. Wilson has provided libraries with the
highest-quality references in the world. The Company offers more than 80
databases on the acclaimed WilsonWeb platform: full text databases:
delivering full articles from thousands of periodicals; retrospective
databases: the complete journalistic record of people, developments and
controversies in a wide range of fields; biography databases: in-depth
profiles of newsmakers in all areas of endeavor; image databases, and more.
Cover-to-cover periodicals indexing, subject-specific thesauri, and rigorous
indexing standards have long earned the H.W. Wilson reputation as the source
for bibliographic research. Editorial staff members with MLS or MLIS
degrees--multi-lingual trained librarians and subject specialists--ensure
relevant and comprehensive coverage and keep Wilson resources at the leading
edge of service in libraries. New WilsonWeb tools include
ReadSpeaker--conversion of articles into audio files, for listening at your
workstation or downloading for later; WilsonWeb Mobile, a streamlined new
interface for smart phones and other mobile devices; article translations
into any of 13 languages; "My WilsonWeb" individual user accounts; citation
tools that help users construct bibliographies according to the latest
standards, and others. For more information, visit www.hwwilson.com.

 

About EBSCO Publishing

EBSCO Publishing is the producer of EBSCOhostR, the world's premier for-fee
online research service, including full-text databases, subject indexes,
point-of-care medical reference, historical digital archives, and e-books.
The company provides more than 300 databases and nearly 300,000 e-books.
Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals and magazines
from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers
(Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.).
EBSCO is also the provider of EBSCO Discovery ServiceT (EDS), which provides
each institution with a fast, single search box for its entire collection,
offering deeper indexing and more full-text searching of journals and
magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery).
For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at:
www.ebscohost.com <http://www.ebscohost.com/> , or contact:
information at ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO
Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United
States.

 

###

For more information, please contact:

Kathleen McEvoy

Public Relations Manager

(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594

kmcevoy at ebscohost.com

 

 

 

 

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