ProQuest and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) are dramatically increasing the organization’s working papers available through ProQuest’s popular ABI/INFORM business information product as well as ProQuest Central and a variety of niche databases. Working papers will double to more than 100,000 by the close of 2012 and will grow to more than 150,000 over the next three years.
“SSRN is devoted to the rapid distribution of ‘tomorrow’s research today’ and we’re delighted to provide another efficient discovery avenue through ProQuest,” said Jeff Wilensky, ProQuest vice-president, publishing. “We’re committed to a superior research experience. Adding the SSRN content to our information products improves service to scholars by providing previews of top quality research months or even years ahead of when it will be published in journals.”
The expanded agreement follows some important findings by ProQuest in the types of resources most valued and used by academic researchers. Access to pre-publication working papers is becoming increasingly vital for researchers looking to find the latest research and ideas in their field. ProQuest’s research with business faculty shows that working papers are used 85 percent of the time when doing active research as part of creating a scholarly work.
Access via ABI/INFORM, widely considered the industry standard for business research, will enable researchers to discover the latest SSRN working papers in fields such as economics, finance, management, corporate governance, entrepreneurship, political science, and health. Researchers can access papers within a feature-rich environment that allows for the easy management, sharing, and manipulation of content. ABI/INFORM also includes thousands of full-text journals, periodicals, downloadable data, market and industry reports, trade publications and dissertations.
“We are excited to be working with ProQuest to expand usage of the papers in the SSRN eLibrary”, said Gregg Gordon, SSRN President and CEO. “The author is our primary customer and this relationship will help us get their research read.”
The expanded agreement with SSRN is part of ProQuest’s ongoing commitment to connect serious researchers with content that inspires advances in global knowledge. To learn more, visit www.proquest.com.
