“The Toronto Star has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Canada. Together with its sister papers, the addition of The Star adds real pow to Canadian Newsstand. Our subscribers always look for more content – now they have a huge set of new newspapers to explore in their research,” said Stephen Abram, vice president, corporate development, for Micromedia ProQuest in Toronto.

Besides The Star, three Ontario dailies and 50 Torstar Metroland community papers, covering most of Southern Ontario, make up the new content.  Key titles include:  The Cambridge Reporter, Guelph Mercury, The Hamilton Spectator, The (Kitchener-Waterloo) Record, Brampton Guardian, North York Mirror and York Guardian.

The agreement includes all available electronic backfiles without embargoes or market restrictions. All of the newspapers will be available by subscription in Canadian Newsstand in three packages: as packaged subsets, major dailies packages, and a complete package, or as individual titles. Content will be available once the data load is complete.  Newspaper content will also be available in eLibrary Canada and bigchalk Library Canada databases.

Customers can sign up for the ProQuest specialized email notification lists at: http://www.proquest.com/proquest/em-notecontent.shtml to receive notification when new content is added.

Torstar Corporation is a broadly based media company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TS.B). Its businesses include daily newspapers led by The Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo), the Guelph Mercury, and their internet-related businesses; Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing, publishers of more than 70 community newspapers in Southern Ontario; and Harlequin Enterprises, a leading global publisher of women's fiction.

ProQuest Company is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a leading provider of value-added information and content to the library, classroom, automotive and powersports markets. 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 classroom markets, we aggregate and publish value-added content from a wide range of sources including newspapers, periodicals and books. Our Business Solutions segment is primarily engaged in the delivery in electronic form of comprehensive parts and service information to the automotive market. It also provides dealers in the powersports (motorcycle, marine, RV and outdoor power) 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 the ProQuest® Web-based online information system, Chadwyck-Healey™ electronic and microform resources, UMI® microform and print reference products, bigchalk™ educational resources, and XanEdu™ online faculty and student resources.  For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.