R. R. Bowker

History

The company was founded in New York City by Frederick Leypoldt, a German immigrant who worked as a bookseller and recognized the need for good bibliographic information to make the book business more efficient. He established the monthly Literary Bulletin, his first periodical, in 1868. In 1870 Leypoldt issued the first edition of his Annual American Catalogue, the forerunner for Books in Print. In 1872 he published the first issue of Publishers Weekly, in 1873 the first Publishers' Uniform Trade-List Annual (later the Publishers Trade List Annual), and in 1876 the first issue of Library Journal. In 1878 Leypoldt's company was acquired by Richard Rogers Bowker. Leypoldt and Bowker also founded two influential standard book-industry references: Literary Marketplace and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.

In 1967, the Xerox Corporation acquired the R. R. Bowker company, and then, in 1985, sold it to Reed International (now RELX Group). That same year, in 1985, Publishers Weekly—after 113 years as a part of R. R. Bowker—was transferred to the Cahners Publishing Company. In 1991, Reed's reference division moved to Chatham, New Jersey. In 2001, Cambridge Information Group acquired Bowker. After the sale, In 2007, Cambridge Information Group sold Literary Marketplace and other directories to Information Today Inc. Cambridge Information Group merged Cambridge Scientific Abstracts with ProQuest Information and Learning to form ProQuest LLC, a privately held Delaware-domiciled limited liability company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. R. R. Bowker LLC was repositioned as an affiliate of ProQuest.