THOMSON LEARNING UNITS MAKE THREE ACQUISITIONS.

The Gale Group (Farmington Hills, MI), a unit of Thomson Learning (Stamford, CT) has acquired Blackbirch Press (Woolbridge, CT) from management and the European Research and Development Database (ERDD) from Elsevier Science (New York), while Gale sister company Wadsworth Group (Belmont, CA) has purchased the political textbook list of Bedford, Freeman & Worth (New York), a book publishing unit of Holtzbrinck Publishers. No terms for any of the three deals were given.

Blackbirch Press is a publisher of books for children in grades K-6 and will become a part of Gale Group's Greenhaven (San Diego, CA) operations. Greenhaven consists of Greenhaven Press, Kidhaven Press and Lucent Books imprints, all of which publish K-12 product lines. Greenhaven was acquired by Gale in late 2000.

The ERDD comprises the Directory of European Research & Development, a database of 10,000 European research centers, and Who's Who in European Research & Development, a directory of 13,000 researchers and scientists. ERDD will become a part of K.G. Saur (Munich), a company that was also acquired in late 2000.

Gale's Wadsworth unit produces educational materials for the humanities, social sciences, and behavioral science fields and said the purchase of the texts from Bedford, Freeman provides a "strong collection" of products for upper-division courses such as international relations, U.S. foreign policy, public policy, public administration and government.