ProQuest history

In 1962, Xerox acquired the company for 51,750 shares of Xerox common stock, worth about $7.9 million.

Under Xerox's ownership, the name of the company changed several times, from University Microfilms to Xerox University Microfilms, to University Microfilms International, then shortened to UMI. In 1985 it was purchased from Xerox by Bell & Howell.

The ProQuest brand name was first used for databases on CD-ROM. An online service called ProQuest Direct was launched in 1995; its name was later shortened to just ProQuest.

Also in 1999, the company acquired Chadwyck-Healey, a one-time microfilm publishing company that was one of the first to produce full-text CD-ROM databases.

In 2001 ProQuest acquired Norman Ross Publishing, a small New York based microfilm publisher.

The first edition of Books In Print® is published (in 2002 Barnes & Noble names it the Database of Record).

Also in 2004, the company acquired Copley Publishing Group.

In 2006, ProQuest Company, then the parent company of ProQuest Information and Learning, sold it to Cambridge Information Group, owner of R. R. Bowker.

In 2007, ProQuest Information and Learning was merged with CSA to form ProQuest CSA. Later that year it was renamed ProQuest LLC.

Cumulatively, pre-tax profits were overstated by 129.9 million dollars (or about 31 percent). In 2008, Voyager Learning Company and ProQuest's CFO (from the time of the earnings overstatements) settled SEC "charges without admitting or denying the allegations of the SEC's complaint".

In 2011, ProQuest acquired Ebrary, an online digital library of full texts of over 170,000 scholarly e-books.

In 2013, ProQuest acquired Ebook Library (EBL), with plans to combine ebrary and EBL into a single e-book platform.

In 2014, ProQuest acquired Pi2 Solutions, a privately owned company specializing in Drug Safety Triager (DST) & Product Literature Database (PLD) systems for the biopharmaceutical industry.

In October 2015, ProQuest acquired Ex Libris.

In June 2016, ProQuest acquired Alexander Street Press, a provider of streaming videos and ebooks.

In January 2020, ProQuest acquired Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a provider of technology solutions to academic and public libraries.