 | |
| Parent company | Bloomsbury Publishing |
|---|---|
| Status | Active |
| Founded | 1955 |
| Founder | Eric Boehm |
| Headquarters location | Santa Barbara, California |
| Distribution | self-distributed (US) Edu Reference Publishers Direct (Canada) Ontario Library Association (Libraries Unlimited, Canada) Co Info (Australia) Inbooks (Libraries Unlimited, Australia) Marston Book Services (UK)[1] |
| Key people |
|
| Publication types | Books, databases, magazines, journals |
| Nonfiction topics | History, social sciences |
| Imprints |
|
| Official website | www |
ABC-Clio, LLC (stylizedABC-CLIO) is an American publishing company for academic reference works and periodicals primarily on topics such as history and social sciences for educational and public library settings. Since 2021, ABC-Clio and its suite of imprints are collectively imprints of British publishing houseBloomsbury Publishing.
ABC-Clio provides service to fifteen different online databases which contain over one million online textbooks.[2] The company consults academic leaders in the fields they cover in order to provide authority for their reference titles.[3] The headquarters are located inSanta Barbara, California.
ABC-Clio was founded in 1955 as a privately held corporation by Eric Boehm with its first publication,Historical Abstracts.[4] The name represents the company's two original divisions when it incorporated in 1969: ABC stands for American Bibliographical Center and Clio Press is named afterClio, the muse of history from ancient Greek mythology. According to Boehm, he had always been interested in history so when he noticed that there were not many good historical abstracting services available, he started publishing theHistorical Abstracts.[5]
During the 1960s, a sister bibliographic and abstract publication on American history was added,America: History and Life, which was considered an award-winning title. The company entered into digital publishing with electronic data in the 1960s and in 1975, it published its first online database[6] calledDIALOG. During the 1980s, ABC-Clio expanded into providing primary reference books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries and stopped publishing bibliographic books.[5]
In the 1990s, ABC-Clio began to provide access to its humanities database on CD-ROM. TheExegy Current Events CD-ROM was named "Best Disc of the Year" by Library Journal.[4] In 1998, ABC-Clio provided electronic access toAmerica: History and Life. By the 2000s, one of the company's most popular products had become online databases for researching many topics in the field of the humanities. In 2001, ABC-Clio began to publisheBooks, initially providing 150 different titles to schools and libraries.[6] The company's reference books had won numerous awards, and the company started a series of subject-related online databases for secondary school use. In 2004, the company acquired the quarterly historical journal,Journal of the West, which has been published since 1962.[4]
In 1996, ABC-Clio merged with an electronic publishing company, Intellimation, which also produced educational software. The merger brought Becky Snyder, who by 2009 had become ABC-Clio's president, from Intellimation.[7] In 2007, it sold two databases – Historical Abstracts andAmerica: History and Life – toEBSCO Publishing; in addition, the companies also agreed a partnership through which nine additional ABC-Clio databases would be distributed through EBSCO Publishing.[8]
In December 2021,Bloomsbury Publishing acquired ABC-Clio forUS$22.9 million (equivalent to $25.4 million in 2023).[9]
In 2008, ABC-Clio acquired the Greenwood Publishing Group fromHoughton Mifflin Harcourt. The deal gave ABC-Clio a "perpetual license" to use the imprints of Greenwood Press and publish all of its titles. Acquiring the publishing group gave ABC-Clio access to Greenwood Press, Praeger Publishers, Praeger Security International, and Libraries Unlimited.[11] Greenwood focuses on publishing full-text reference works which are authoritative on various topics.[12]
Libraries Unlimited came to ABC-Clio as part of a deal with Greenwood Press. In 2012, Kathyrn Suárez was named publisher for this division, which focuses on publishing for librarians and information professionals.[12]
ABC-Clio databases are provided under the umbrella of ABC-Clio Solutions. There are fifteen different databases providing access to different subject areas.[2] ABC-Clio Solutions provides digital curriculum with multimedia content, text-to-speech features, translation tools which covers various topics relating to history and the humanities.[13] After ABC-Clio acquired Greenwood Press's databases, they revamped the look and feel of their interface in order to provide common access through the ABC-Clio interface.[14] ABC-Clio also provided the ability to search across multiple databases through one search, also providing options for narrowing the search after revamping their interface.[15] The new interface is considered user-friendly and provides access to personalized features.[16]
In 1950, AmericanFrederick A. Praeger foundedFrederick A. Praeger, Inc.[17] Originally publishing books by disillusioned former Communists who had fled from behind theIron Curtain, the publishing house became known for publishing "scholarly and professional books" in the subject areas of social sciences and the humanities.[12]
In 1966, Praeger sold his firm toWilliam B. Benton, an American senator and publisher and the chairman ofEncyclopaedia Britannica.[17] In 1976, it was sold toCBS,[18] which had shortened the name to Praeger Publishing before selling it toGreenwood Press, Inc., in 1986.[18]
When the renamed Greenwood Publishing Group (GPG) was acquired by ABC-Clio in 2009,[19] Praeger Publishing became a standalone imprint of ABC-Clio, and remained such when, in December 2021,Bloomsbury Publishing bought ABC-Clio.[9]
