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Weekly News Digest
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October 31, 2023 — 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.
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Biden Administration Issues Executive Order on Moving Forward With AI
The White House issued a fact sheet on President Joe Biden’s new executive order on artificial intelligence. It states:[On Oct. 30], President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). The Executive Order establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more. … As we advance this agenda at home, the Administration will work with allies and partners abroad on a strong international framework to govern the development and use of AI. The Administration has already consulted widely on AI governance frameworks over the past several months—engaging with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK. For more information, read the fact sheet.
ALA Rolls Out Survey Results on Gen Z and Millennial Library Usage
ALA published a new report, “Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use.”Findings include the following: - Gen Z and Millennials are using public libraries, both in person and digitally, at higher rates compared to older generations.
- 54 percent of Gen Z and Millennials visited a physical library within the previous 12 months.
- [S]urvey respondents read and bought on average twice as many print books per month as any other category.
- More than half of the 43 percent of Gen Z and Millennials who don’t self-identify as readers have been to their local library in the past 12 months.
For more information, read the press release.
Denodo Unveils Platform Enhancements
Denodo has made updates to its Denodo Platform, “which helps organizations to democratize data usage across the enterprise using generative AI, enforces consistent security and cost management policies, and enables self-service for business users, so they can create their own data products.”Updates include the following: - [There are] pre-built integrations with ChatGPT and Azure OpenAI, providing natural-language access to all datasets governed and delivered by the Denodo Platform.
- Data access request workflows can now be managed within the Denodo Data Catalog, allowing data owners to quickly respond to requests and have subsequent visibility to sensitive data usage, to streamline data access and governance.
- The Denodo Platform’s new FinOps Dashboard provides production operations and finance staff with views and reports of the various costs incurred, from all analytic and operational data workloads managed by the system.
- [D]ata owners can now manage indirect access controls of derived views and control downstream access to their data products, which is critical for data sharing and multi-tenant deployments.
For more information, read the press release.
Springer Nature Acquires Slimmer AI's Science Division
Springer Nature signed a definitive agreement to bring Netherlands-based Slimmer AI’s science division into its fold. The companies have partnered since 2015 to leverage Slimmer AI’s software to create AI tools to enhance the publishing process.“I am thrilled to have Slimmer AI’s Science division join Springer Nature and expand our existing AI expertise,” says Matthias Wissel, Springer Nature’s CIO. “After years of successful collaboration I am excited to see how we can scale and accelerate the further improvements we believe AI can help us deliver throughout the research process for our authors and customers.” For more information, read the press release.
CELUS Enters U.S. Market by Collaborating With ConsortiaManager for E-Resource Management
CELUS, which “was developed as an open-source project for CzechELib, the Czech national consortium of academic libraries,” shared the following:CELUS, an innovative e-resources usage statistics analytical solution for librarians, is entering the US market with a new partnership announcement. In collaboration with ConsortiaManager, a versatile ERM [e-resource management] tool for consortia management, they offer a comprehensive solution to manage the whole e-resources lifecycle, including advanced cost-per-use assessment to track the translation of e-resources investments into community use. CELUS … seamlessly harvests COUNTER-compliant usage data via SUSHI and processes manually uploaded reports from a plethora of non-COUNTER publishers. An overlap analysis feature allows librarians and consortia managers to assess subscription convenience and simulate content availability changes. For more information, read the news item.
Clarivate Publishes Report on Research in China
Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information shared a report, “China’s Research Landscape,” which finds, based on Web of Science data, that China’s “research economy has seen a dramatic increase in quality and its research is increasingly valued beyond its borders. China is also diversifying beyond its traditional strengths in technology and physical sciences to focus on new areas such as biomolecular science.”Jonathan Adams, chief scientist at the Institute for Scientific Information, says, “China continues its rise as a global science and technology power and our report findings show that the notion that its research output is lagging in quality can be effectively dispelled. While the U.S. remains a key international research partner, China is fostering closer collaboration with emerging research economies in the Middle East as well as many others. This underlines the importance of research investment as an aid to cultural diplomacy.” For more information and other key findings, read the press release.
NEH Begins Research Initiative on AI
In response to the Biden administration’s Oct. 30, 2023, executive order on AI, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is launching a new agencywide research initiative called Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence. Through it, “NEH will support research projects that seek to understand and address the ethical, legal, and societal implications of artificial intelligence (AI). NEH is particularly interested in projects that explore the impacts of AI-related technologies on truth, trust, and democracy; safety and security; and privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”Funding opportunities will be available for stakeholders, such as: - Universities or independent research organizations considering establishing a research center that focuses on humanistic AI research
- Collaborative teams interested in planning for an international AI research project or hosting a scholarly convening about AI
- Institutions interested in hosting professional development programs on the latest research related to humanistic AI
For more information, read the press release.
Getty Research Institute Gains Historical Artifacts From the Merrill C. Berman Collection
The Getty Research Institute (GRI) acquired 600 prints, posters, catalogs, drawings, and other “printed ephemera” from the Merrill C. Berman Collection. Berman collected these works over 5 decades; they reflect “Berman’s lifelong interest in history, the social role of artists, and the integral role of art and graphic design in social movements of the 20th century.” In addition, the works highlight “four core strengths of Berman’s collection: Works Progress Administration-era posters, social justice and LGBTQ+ collections, and African American culture, activism, and protest collection.”“This important selection from Berman’s collection addresses a major gap in our American holdings, illustrating the influence of the Bauhaus and other modernist movements on American design of the 20th century, emphasizing the critical social role of artists, and adding further momentum to the important work being done by our African American Art History Initiative,” says Mary Miller, GRI’s director. For more information, read the news item.
Karger Publishers and Jisc Sign OA Agreement With Option to Showcase Research to the Public
Karger Publishers announced the following:Karger Publishers and Jisc have reached a three-year agreement by once again expanding Open Access (OA) research publishing and, for the first time, providing authors and institutions with the opportunity to bring their knowledge to a broader, nonscientific public. In effect from 2024 to 2026, the Transitional Agreement enables authors from participating Jisc member institutions to publish their articles OA at no cost to them, as well as providing unlimited access to Karger journals. In an industry-first, Karger has now added an option for authors to complement their publications and make their research even more widely visible via engaging written, audio, and visual formats that can be easily understood by non-specialists, too. … As a part of Karger’s ongoing mission to make research accessible and understandable to everyone, simplified plain language and compelling formats ensure that non-scientists—including government officials and policy makers, industry partners and the general public—gain an accurate understanding of the findings. Increasing public understanding of science is critical to increasing trust in science. For more information, read the press release.
Elon Musk Reveals His Plans for X
Alex Heath writes the following in “Elon Musk’s ‘Everything App’ Plan for X, in His Own Words” for The Verge:Since Elon Musk bought Twitter a year ago, he has blown it up to create something else entirely. What is now called X is in the process of becoming ‘a single application that encompasses everything,’ he recently told employees. Being the ‘digital town square,’ as he has described Twitter in the past, isn’t enough. For X to succeed in Musk’s eyes, the platform needs to compete with YouTube, LinkedIn, FaceTime, dating apps, and the entire banking industry. For more information and a full transcript of Musk’s Oct. 26 internal meeting with X staffers, read the article.
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Brandi Scardilli
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