Through its UMI® Dissertation Publishing program, ProQuest publishes more than 55,000 dissertations and master's theses each year and offers full text copies of more than one million dissertations dating from the 19th century forward. Some 3,000 (or 5%) of dissertations submitted for publication in 2002 were in electronic format, and that number is expected to increase significantly in the next few years.

"This is a major step toward the development of comprehensive dissertation authoring tools and services," said Dan Arbour, Executive Director and Vice President of ProQuest's UMI division. "We believe this new system will allow for greater efficiencies in the dissertation publishing process. It facilitates communication among the graduate students, faculty, and scholars, and provides a consistent medium and process."

The new system allows a graduate student to upload his or her approved dissertation into the publishing system, where it is automatically reformatted into Adobe PDF and sent directly to the graduate school. There, the document is reviewed for compliance with graduate school policy and format. Using an administrative tool, the graduate school reviewer can accept the document or request formatting revisions. The author is automatically notified by email of the actions taken.

Once the thesis is accepted, the document and all relevant data are delivered to UMI Dissertation Publishing and to the university library for expedited processing, cataloguing, and posting. The new automated system is expected to substantially improve the publication process. The backend technology to support the new process was developed by The Berkeley Electronic Press (www.bepress.com). The service is available now and is being rolled out to graduate schools throughout the next year. Graduate schools interested in signing up may contact ProQuest at electronic_submissions@il.proquest.com. UMI continues to accept dissertations for publication in print format.

ProQuest Company (NYSE: PQE) is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a leading provider of value-added information and content to the library and education, and automotive and powersports industries. We provide products and services to our customers through two business segments: Information & Learning and Business Solutions. Through our Information & Learning segment, which primarily serves the library and education markets, we aggregate and publish value-added content from a wide range of sources including newspapers, periodicals and books. Our Business Solutions segment, formerly known as Bell & Howell Publishing Services, is primarily engaged in the delivery in electronic form of comprehensive parts information to the automotive market. It also provides dealers in the powersports (motorcycle, marine and RV) markets with management systems that enable them to manage their inventory, customer service and other aspects of their businesses.

ProQuest Information and Learning is a world leader in collecting, organizing, and distributing information worldwide to researchers, faculty, and students in libraries and schools. Known widely for its strength in business and economics, general-reference, humanities, social sciences, and STM content, the company develops premium databases comprising periodicals, newspapers, dissertations, out-of-print books, and other scholarly information from more than 8,500 publishers worldwide. Users access the information through ProQuest®, the company’s Web-based online information system, Chadwyck-Healey^TM electronic and microform resources, and UMI® microform and print reference products. For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.