EBSCO Information Services, headquartered inIpswich, Massachusetts, is a division ofEBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered inBirmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of many types around the world. Its products include EBSCONET, a complete e-resource management system, and EBSCOhost, which supplies a fee-based online research service with 375 full-text databases, a collection of 600,000-plus ebooks, subject indexes,point-of-care medical references, and an array of historical digital archives. In 2010, EBSCO introduced itsEBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) to institutions, which allows searches of a portfolio of journals and magazines.[1]
EBSCO Information Services is a division ofEBSCO Industries Inc., a company founded in 1944 byElton Bryson Stephens Sr. and headquartered inBirmingham, Alabama. "EBSCO" is an acronym for Elton B. Stephens Company. EBSCO Industries has annual sales of about $3 billion. It is one of the largest privately held companies in Alabama and one of the top 200 in the United States, based on revenues and employee numbers.[2]
EBSCO Information Services originated in 1984 as a print publication calledPopular Magazine Review, featuring article abstracts from more than 300 magazines. In 1987 the company was purchased by EBSCO Industries and its name was changed toEBSCO Publishing. It employed around 750 people by 2007.[3] In 2003, it acquired Whitston Publishing, another database provider.[4] In 2010 EBSCO purchased NetLibrary and in 2011 it took overH. W. Wilson Company.[5][6][7] EBSCO Publishing merged with EBSCO Information Services on July 1, 2013, with the merged business operating as EBSCO Information Services.[8] In 2015 EBSCO acquired YBP (Yankee Book Peddler) Library Services fromBaker & Taylor, and later renamed it GOBI Library Solutions.[9][10]
Metapress was founded in 1998 as anonline publication platform for content creators to produce and host their printed journal editions online.[11] A division of EBSCO,[12] the platform became one of the world's largest scholarly content hosts,[13] with over 31,000 publications[14] from over 180 publishers.[15] Atypon acquired the Metapress business from EBSCO in 2014, with the Metapress platform to be discontinued and customers moved toAtypon's Literatum platform.[16][17] Content was migrated toLiteratum on May 21, 2015.[18]
In February 2020, EBSCO Information Services announced their agreement to acquire Zepheira, a company founded in February 2007 and headquartered inReston, Virginia, with leaders inSemantic Web and who helped developDublin Core,BIBFRAME and the Library.Link Network.[19] Following its merger, Zepheira continues to operates as an independent division.[20]
Databases: EBSCO provides a range of library database services.[21] Many of the databases, such asMEDLINE andEconLit, are licensed from content vendors. Others, such asAcademic Search, America: History and Life, Art Index, Art Abstracts, Art Full Text, Business Source, Clinical Reference Systems, Criminal Justice Abstracts, Education Abstracts, Environment Complete, Health Source, Historical Abstracts, History Reference Center,MasterFILE, NetLibrary, Primary Search, Professional Development Collection, and USP DI are compiled by EBSCO itself. EBSCO can be configured to route toopen access publications throughUnpaywall data.[22]
Discovery: This product is used to create a unified, customized index of an institution's information resources, and a means of accessing all the content from a single search box. The system works by harvesting metadata from both internal and external sources, and then creating a preindexed service.
FOLIO: amicroservices software platform in open-source model. EBSCO provides implementation for the core of software, hosting services, as well as actively contributing to its continued development.[23]
eBooks: EBSCO provides ebooks and audiobooks across a wide range of subject matter. EBSCO reports that their database includes over a million ebooks from over 1500 publishers.[24]
DynaMedex is a clinical decision support solution. Under a new name, DynaMedex, formerly DynaMed and Micromedex with Watson,[25] continues to enhance clinical decision support and operations for healthcare providers and health systems is a clinical reference tool for physicians and other health care professionals for use at the point-of-care. In 2024, DynaMed was named 2024 Best in KLAS for clinical decision Support clinical resources[26] by KLAS, a research firm that specializes in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors.[27] In 2012, it ranked highest among 10 online clinical resources in a study in theJournal of Clinical Epidemiology[28] and also had the highest overall performance in the disease reference product category in two successive reports on clinical decision support resources by KLAS, a research firm that specializes in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors.[29]
EBSCOed: a division focusing on the creation of interoperable learner records, credential wallets, and other services tailored towards the needs of workforce development agencies.[30] EBSCOed is best known for its contributions to theAlabama Talent Triad, a project that seeks to connect Alabama employers with skilled workers.[31][32]
^Prorok, J. C.; Iserman, E. C.; Wilczynski, N. L.; Haynes, R. B. (September 10, 2012). "The quality, breadth, and timeliness of content updating vary substantially for 10 online medical texts: an analytic survey".Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.65 (12):1289–95.doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.05.003.PMID22974495.
