The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, known as the "big green books" an "Thomas Registry", is a multi-volume directory of industrial product information covering 650,000 distributors, manufacturers and service companies within 67,000-plus industrial categories. It was first published in 1898 by Harvey Mark Thomas as Hardware and Kindred Trades. Thomas Publishing Company, LLC of New York City has been privately-held since its inception. Thomas has moved its database online as ThomasNet, published and maintained by Thomas Industrial Network, one of Thomas’ five business units. ThomasNet has expanded to provide not only product and company information, but Online catalogs, computer-aided design (CAD) drawings, news, press releases, forums and blogs.