There were two pieces of news coming out of LexisNexis today. The first was the announcement that ProQuest has acquired Congressional Information Services (CIS) and University Publications of America. The Second announcement was the launching of Reed Tech Web Archiving Services powered by Iterasi that will focus on preserving “web-based content to support the growing need for litigation protection, e-discovery, and compliance.”

Seems like LexisNexis is streamlining some of its products in anticipation of the upcoming split between their legal and risk departments. I’m assuming that the Reed Tech Web Archiving will be headed into the “Risk” portion, while the CIS portion makes the “Legal” portion a little lighter in the transition. Here’s a little more about the CIS move:

“As LexisNexis continues to transform its portfolio of products and services, we are very pleased to place this business unit with ProQuest as it is an excellent fit for them and their customers,” said Mike Simmons, senior vice president of Specialty Businesses at LexisNexis. “We look forward to working with ProQuest – including licensing back certain legislative content sets from ProQuest for our legal professional customers.”
CIS and UPA editorial staff members join ProQuest and will continue to be based in their Bethesda (MD) offices. Product names will remain the same, but will begin to include the ProQuest brand in 2011.

ProQuest has acquired the following LexisNexis products:
  • LexisNexis Congressional (to be renamed ProQuest Congressional)
  • LexisNexis Statistical Insight (to be renamed ProQuest Statistical Insight)
  • LexisNexis DataSets (to be renamed ProQuest DataSets)
  • LexisNexis Statutes at Large (to be renamed ProQuest Statutes at Large)
  • LexisNexis Government Periodical Index (to be renamed ProQuest Government Periodical Index)
  • LexisNexis Primary Sources in US History (to be renamed ProQuest Primary Sources in US History)
  • Congressional Hearings Digital Collection
  • Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection
  • Congressional Research Digital Collection
  • US Serial Set Digital Collection
  • US Serial Set Maps Collection
  • All CIS microform and print products
  • All statistical microform and print products
  • All UPA microform collections
LexisNexis is retaining these academic-oriented products:
  • LexisNexis Academic
  • LexisNexis Library Express
  • LexisNexis Scholastic
  • LexisNexis State Capital
  • LexisNexis for Development Professionals