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 gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

, a subsidiary of

Cengage Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for higher education, K–12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(June 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders 2 ...

, 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 magazine A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular tradesman, trade or industry. The collective term ...

s, 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 Patrick J. Spain (born 1952) is a serial entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of First Stop Health, LLC., a Chicago-based provider of telemedicine services. He is also the Executive Chairman and co-founder of the news curation sit ...

, who had just sold Hoover's, which he had co-founded, bought

eLibrary HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headquarte ...

and

Encyclopedia.com ''Encyclopedia.com'' is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information, images, and videos from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works. History The website was launched by Infonautics in March 1998. Infonautics w ...

from

Tucows Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States. The company is composed of three independent business ...

. 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 Stamford () is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, outside of New York City. It is the sixth-most populous city in New England. Stamford is also the largest city in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Weste ...

. 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 LexisNexis is an American data analytics company headquartered in New York, New York. Its products are various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper searc ...

and

Factiva Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and free sources. Providing organizations with search, alerting, dissemination, and other information management c ...

." 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 Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. It was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, allowing the latter to become the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States at the time ...

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 gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

, a subsidiary of

. Highbeam featured many articles by the UK based

Trinity Mirror Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national ''Daily Mirror'', '' ...

Group. Highbeam Research shut down in late 2018 after 16 years. When they did so, all of their content was added to

Questia Questia was an online commercial digital repository of books and articles that had an academic orientation, with a particular emphasis on books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. All the text in all the Questia books and ...

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