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Weekly News Digest

July 21, 2022 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Springer Nature Unveils AI-Based Service for Strategic Decision Making

Nature Research Intelligence comprises three research products (across and from all scientific disciplines and publishers) at launch: Nature Strategy Report (“a customized high quality report delivering insights to set research direction”), Nature Index (“a globally recognized and expanding set of metrics to help organizations understand their research output”), and Nature Navigator (“a live window into research to guide decision making, using real time data, and AI to summarize emerging research topics, guide research decision making and identify potential collaboration opportunities”).

For more information, read the press release.

An Analysis of Inaugural Copyright Claims Board Filings

[July 16] marks the 1-month anniversary of the Copyright Claims Board, so I thought it’s a good opportunity to take a very quick snapshot of the filings we’ve seen so far. …

The CCB has received 58 filings so far. That projects a total of approximately 700 filings annually. 10 claims have not been publicly posted to the website yet (including some of the earlier filings—what’s the holdup?). …

I expected the CCB to be dominated by photographers, and unsurprisingly photographs are the #1 work at issue. However, only 19 of the claims (40%) involve photos—a lower percentage than I would have expected.

For more information, read the blog post.

SAGE Offers Free-to-Read Research on Gun Violence and Gun Control

For more information, read the press release.

DPLA Introduces a Community of Practice for Its Digital Equity Project Supporting Diverse Archives

DPLA teamed up with an initial cohort of three organizations, thus creating a Digital Equity Project Community of Practice, which will see representatives of each organization collaborating to create a model for partnering with diverse archival projects and giving financial support to developing new initiatives. The organizations are Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Seattle Public Library, and DPLA’s Recollection Wisconsin Service Hub along with the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries. Each will get subgrant awards to work on a project focused on digital capacity building.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library will expand its Living Archives Project, which is documenting the impact of the pandemic on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. Seattle Public Library will build on its existing relationship with the Wa Na Wari immersive community art project to support the development of its Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute, which trains people in doing Black memory work. The Recollection Wisconsin Service Hub and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries are teaming to fund a Milwaukee Women’s Art Library community ambassador, who will act as a liaison to the city’s women’s and nonbinary art community, breaking down barriers to access for them.

For more information, read the announcement.

UNESCO Looks at Holocaust-Related Content on Social Media

As part of their plan to counter the denial and distortion of the Holocaust, UNESCO and the United Nations sought to objectively measure the extent of these phenomena on social networks, in partnership with the World Jewish Congress. They commissioned researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute to identify and analyze 4,000 posts related to the Holocaust, on five major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter.

The report demonstrates that Holocaust denial and distortion is massive on Telegram, a platform known for its lack of moderation and clear user guidelines. Nearly half (49%) of Holocaust-related public content on this platform denies or distorts the facts. This rate rises to over 80% for messages in German, and around 50% in English and French. These posts, easily accessible to people looking for Holocaust-related information on the platform, are often explicitly antisemitic.

On moderated platforms, denial and distortion are also present, but to a lesser extent. They concern 19% of Holocaust-related content on Twitter, 17% on TikTok, 8% on Facebook and 3% on Instagram. But the falsification of the facts about the Holocaust then takes on new forms: perpetrators learn to evade content moderation, by using humorous and parodic memes as a strategy intended to normalize antisemitic ideas, for example, making these ideas appear mainstream.

For a list of suggestions for how social media platforms should deal with Holocaust denial content and more information, read the press release.

Springshare Integrates LibChat Into PowerNotes to Streamline Research

“This partnership will continue to enhance our set of library-specific features tailored to bring the library to the patron, instead of relying on the patron to come to the library,” says Wilson Tsu, PowerNotes’ founder. “We are excited to work with an industry leader like Springshare to add value for our users by connecting them to experts in the library through LibChat while also increasing the utilization of library services. This is a clear win for everyone.”

For more information, read the press release.

The Chronicling America Newspaper Collection Gets an Interactive Map and Timeline

The map and timeline are updated weekly as new content is added to the collection, and users can download the dataset to create their own custom data visualizations or analyses.  

For more information, read the blog post.

Thieme and ResearchGate Join Forces for Increased Visibility of Scientific Research

“ResearchGate has built an interactive digital environment that the global scientific community uses both regularly and enthusiastically. By also publishing Thieme’s open access journals directly on the ResearchGate platform, we have created an additional avenue to access them and have provided scientists with an option to actively connect with one another through their own research papers,” says Veronika Spinka, SVP of science at Thieme.

For more information, read the press release (translation required).

Findings From Ithaka S+R's Latest U.S. Faculty Survey

Its findings include that “[s]eventy percent of faculty aged 22 to 44 said they would like the traditional, subscription-based, publication model shifted to an open access model compared with 63 percent of faculty in the 44 to 54 age group and 57 percent of faculty in the 65 and older age group. ... Mostly faculty in the social sciences and sciences have this sentiment, compared to peers in other academic disciplines, the survey states.” In addition, “faculty members continue to be interested in an open access publication model and see their library as key in financially supporting open access infrastructure.”

For more information, read the news item.

The Looming Problem of Deepfakes

A deepfake video uses artificial intelligence and deep-learning techniques to produce fake images of people or events. …

Many companies publicly list their board of directors and senior management on their website. Often, these high-level business executives will have spoken at events or in the media, so it’s possible to find footage of them speaking. 

By using AI-powered deep-learning techniques, cyber criminals could exploit this public information to create a deepfake of a senior-level executive, exploit email vulnerabilities to request a video call with an employee, and then ask them to make [a financial] transaction. If the victim believes they’re speaking to their CEO or boss, they’re unlikely to deny the request. …

[D]eepfakes could easily become a new vector for cyber crime, and it’s going to be a real struggle to contain the trend. It’s entirely possible that organisations will need to come up with a new set of rules around authenticating decisions made in online meetings. It’s also a challenge to the authenticity of remote working—what does it mean if you can’t believe what you see on the screen?

For more information, read the article.