Full-text coverage will be included for such titles as The National Post, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, St. Catharine's Standard, Regina Leader Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, and Victoria Times-Colonist. Rights under the new agreement will begin on January 1, 2003, and will extend to rights for some titles that are already in place.

"We're pleased to continue to expand our offerings of Canadian content to customers. These titles offer valuable national and local news and meet the needs of libraries across North America and beyond," said Rod Gauvin, senior vice president of the ProQuest Division of ProQuest Information and Learning. "In addition, we will offer library customers improved access to content. Previously, when this content was available from other information providers, full text was embargoed for 30 days. With this new agreement, the embargo has been reduced to just seven days. This improvement in currency is representative of the type of service enhancement we are committed to providing to the library market."

The agreement, which covers a four-year period, becomes effective January 1, 2003, and designates ProQuest the preferred vendor to the library and education market. Titles will appear in various ProQuest and Micromedia ProQuest newspaper databases, including ProQuest Newsstand^TM, which offers customizable packages of newspapers by title, and Canada's Information Resource Centre, a gateway to U.S. and international online databases.

For more information about ProQuest and Micromedia ProQuest products, library representatives may call 1-800-521-0600, ext. 3183 or 3452 (outside North America, call 1-223-215-512), or email pqsales@il.proquest.com.

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 8,000 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. Micromedia ProQuest, the company's Canadian division, develops and produces information products with premium Canadian content. For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.