"As the education accountability movement grows, teachers want more than ever to find and use the right instructional resources to address educational standards and individualized student learning needs," said Al De Seta, president K-12 Market, ProQuest Information and Learning. "As a leading K-12 content provider, one of ProQuest's most important roles is to provide educators with high-quality tools and resources to achieve those goals."

The newly re-launched SIRS Researcher helps students make sense of the current and enduring social issues affecting their world. The non-divisive, unbiased editorial approach of SIRS on hundreds of Leading Issues allows students to build critical thinking skills that they will use throughout their lives. Pro/con overviews, MyAnalysis, That's Debatable polls, and primary source research guides help students understand differences in opinion, separate fact from fiction, and make up their own minds.

eLibrary Science is a comprehensive resource that supports both students' and teachers' classroom needs. The thousands of full-text and multimedia files help students research and understand concepts in science, while educators can use eLibrary Science to create engaging classroom presentations, demonstrations, lessons and activities. Additionally, a partnership with Salem Press makes available high-interest titles such as Magill's Encyclopedia of Science: Animal Life, The Encyclopedia of Genetics and others, in electronic format for the first time.

Like all ProQuest K-12 products, eLibrary and SIRS unite its content and online technologies within a standards-based framework using ProQuest's patented MediaSeek® correlation technology, which allows the knowledge database to update constantly as content and standards change. This fall, ProQuest completed loading standards in core curricula for all U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

SIRS Decades provides more than 5,000 hand-selected articles, highlighting key events, movements, people and places in 20th Century America. Documents span a wide range of formats – letters and memos, editorial cartoons, illustrations, ads and articles – with some being released from the UMI vault for the first time in digital format. Organized by decade and topic, SIRS Decades places primary and secondary sources into a curriculum-oriented framework that builds a relevant context for understanding, enriching the content and students’ experience with the material.

World Conflicts Today focuses on protracted, unresolved conflicts, exploring the past, present and implications for the future of each. Developed by our editors at CultureGrams with input from hundreds of primary and secondary sources written from multiple perspectives, the reports synthesize news articles, treatises, and editorial commentary, helping students digest complex issues. In addition to World Conflicts Today, CultureGrams released the 2006 edition of their popular country reports, with seven new reports: Angola, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Libya, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Suriname.

ProQuest Information and Learning is a world leader in collecting, organizing, and publishing information worldwide for 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 the ProQuest^® Web-based online information system, Chadwyck-Healey^™ electronic and microform resources, UMI^®microform and print reference products, eLibrary^®, SIRS^®, and XanEdu^® online faculty and student resources.  For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.

ProQuest Information and Learning is a business unit of ProQuest Company (www.proquestcompany.com), which was recently named one of the top 100 fastest growing technology companies in the United States by Business 2.0 and one of the 200 best small companies by Forbes Magazine.