"This is a remarkable electronic archive that chronicles the people, events and circumstances that helped shape this country," said Helen Cochran, Senior Vice-President News and Entertainment, Bell Globemedia Interactive.

"The Globe and Mail archive provides an unparalleled record of Canada’s history over the past century and a half, and in keeping with our leadership in technological innovations, the actual pages from The Globe and Mail are now available," she added.

Globeandmail.com is one of the leading suites of on-line properties operated by Bell Globemedia Interactive, and delivers the most authoritative breaking news to Canadians, from the latest in business and technology to national and international news.

The full pages of "Canada's Heritage From 1844", can be accessed by subscribers through the Micromedia ProQuest Web portal -- Canada's Information Resource Centre. The 1.4 million page archive is the most extensive in Canada, and the breadth and depth of the content make it a vital and convenient research tool for educators, librarians and researchers. Coverage includes major events in Canadian history, plus thousands of images, advertisements, classifieds, political cartoons and birth and death notices from issues of Canada's National Newspaper, dating back to the pre-confederation era.

Stephen Abram, Vice-President, Corporate Development, for Micromedia ProQuest believes the agreement is a natural fit, perfect for today's market. "Micromedia ProQuest is very excited to begin this new relationship with Bell Globemedia Interactive. Our companies were early leaders in the Canadian electronic information industry with the introduction of innovative electronic services in the 1970's. Representing this new innovation, 'Canada's Heritage From 1844', is a natural alliance for our two companies," he said.

"Canada's Heritage From 1844" is a fantastic addition to the resources of the Canadian research community. Researchers are now able to discover Canada's past through this unique and prestigious source, and explore further into the past than was ever previously possible via electronic resources,” added Mr. Abram.

"Canada's Heritage From 1844" is built using the award-winning Archive Publisher from Cold North Wind Inc., a world leader in newspaper archive technology located in Ottawa.

Micromedia ProQuest (www.micromedia.ca) is Canada's leading publisher and distributor of proprietary and third-party reference, financial, bibliographic, and directory information for the academic, corporate, government and library markets. For 30 years Micromedia ProQuest has produced an extensive collection of quality Canadian information tools for the academic, corporate, government and library markets. Canada's Information Resource Centre (circ.micromedia.ca) is Micromedia ProQuest's online gateway to information resources. It opens the door to a full range of Canadian databases, providing subscribers with web access to essential information. Micromedia ProQuest is a member of ProQuest Information and Learning (www.il.proquest.com), a division of ProQuest Company (www.proquestcompany.com). As well as distributing "Canada's Heritage from 1844", ProQuest Information and Learning is the leading publisher of historical newspaper collections. Digitization is already complete for the complete runs, back to the first issue, of several leading North American papers, including The New York Times® and The Wall Street Journal®.

Bell Globemedia Interactive operates the leading suite of Canadian Internet properties and reaches more than 60 per cent of on-line Canadians. Bell Globemedia Interactive's properties include brands in the key categories of national portal (sympatico.ca), news (globeandmail.com), sports (TSN.ca), jobs (workopolis.com), finance (globeinvestor.com) and directories (yellowpages.ca). It also owns and operates broadcast companion sites (CTV.ca, ROBtv.com), leading city sites across Canada (vancouverplus.ca, toronto.com) and subscription services such as GlobeinvestorGOLD.com. Bell Globemedia Interactive is a division of Bell Globemedia, Canada's premier multi-media company, which also owns The Globe and Mail and CTV.