Bowker Signs Data Partnership Agreements With Major Online Retailers of College Textbooks to Enhance PubTrack(TM) Higher Education Tool


NEW PROVIDENCE, NJ--(Marketwire - November 28, 2007) - Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information management, today announced that it has entered into a number of data partnership agreements with some of the leading textbook e-tailers and virtual bookstores serving the U.S. college retail market.

The new agreements significantly expand the breadth of data collection for PubTrack Higher Education, Bowker's Web-based business intelligence tool for higher education publishing professionals. With the addition of the newest data partners, PubTrack Higher Education now includes textbook purchasing information from more than 11 million students nationwide, or roughly 65 percent of the total U.S. college student population.

PubTrack Higher Education is the only sales analysis resource for the higher education market that provides timely and accurate data regarding textbook sales, course books-in-use information on college campuses nationwide, and analyzes market share data in ways that matter to publishers.

"The addition of important online retailers of college textbooks -- such as Specialty Books, Alibris, TextbooksRus.com, ED MAP, Biblio.com, eCampus, and Textbooks.com -- allows us to make our data sample more comprehensive and our analytics more statistically significant for publishers in the higher ed market," said Nathan Schultz, product manager for Bowker's PubTrack. "Meanwhile, we continue to build our base sample with valuable partners such as Follett Higher Education Group, Barnes and Noble College, and Validis Resources in order to continually increase the volume of our data collection and the accuracy of our reporting."

"PubTrack Higher Education provides publishers with crucial business intelligence by gathering actual Point-of-Sale and Book-in-Use data about which titles are adopted and purchased at colleges and universities across North America," said Kelly Gallagher, general manager of the business intelligence business unit for Bowker. "This information is powerful because it allows publishers to make more calculated business decisions based on totally objective market information."

According to Gallagher, PubTrack Higher Education collects data about academic resources used within specific courses. The aggregated data is then organized and made available to subscribers through a variety of flexible search options and with a number of benchmark reports, such as summaries by publisher, discipline, course and books-in-use.

About Bowker

Bowker is the world's leading source for bibliographic information. The company provides searching, analytical, promotional, and ordering services to publishers, booksellers, libraries, and patrons through national and international brands, including: Books In Print®, Global Books In Print®, Syndetic Solutions™, Pubnet®, PubEasy®, PubTrack™ and more. In the U.S., Australia and Puerto Rico, Bowker is also the exclusive ISBN and SAN Agency and a DOI registration agency for the publishing industry. Bowker is headquartered in New Providence, New Jersey, with operations in East Grinstead, England, and Port Melbourne, Australia. For more company details, please visit www.Bowker.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Daryn Teague Teague Communications 661.297.5292