HighBeam Research was a paid

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

s, newswires, trade magazines, and

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

s in English. It was headquartered in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois. In late 2018, the archive was shut down.

History

The company was established in August 2002 after Patrick Spain, who had just sold Hoover's, which he had co-founded, bought eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com from Tucows. The new company was called Alacritude, LLC (a combination of Alacrity and Attitude). ELibrary had a library of 1,200 newspaper, magazine and radio/TV transcript archives that were generally not freely available. Original investors included Prism Opportunity Fund of Chicago and 1 to 1 Ventures of Stamford, Connecticut. Spain stated, "There was a glaring gap between free search like

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and high-end offerings like LexisNexis and Factiva." Later in 2002, it bought Researchville.com. By 2003, it had increased its archive base to articles from 2,600 publishers. In 2004, it was renamed HighBeam Research. In 2005, it increased its publisher base to 3,500 publishers. In 2006,

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, Knight Ridder and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' archives were added. In 2008, it was purchased by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage. Highbeam featured many articles by the UK based Trinity Mirror Group. Highbeam Research shut down in late 2018 after 16 years. When they did so, all of their content was added to Questia.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:HighBeam Research American companies established in 2002 2018 disestablishments in the United States Cengage Companies based in Chicago Online mass media companies of the United States Defunct internet search engines Online archives of the United States Mass media companies established in 2002 Internet properties established in 2002 Mass media companies disestablished in 2018 Internet properties disestablished in 2018 2008 mergers and acquisitions