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Weekly News Digest

December 5, 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.

Thomson Reuters Exec Makes AI Predictions for 2024

Due to the ever-shifting landscape of Generative AI, leaders across industries must take stock of AI ethics and provenance. More specifically—once the hype has settled down—companies will need to examine their approach to the technology.

Carter Cousineau, VP of data and model governance at Thomson Reuters, affirms that while speed of AI adoption is important, this should not be at the cost of responsible design, development, and deployment. With an intimate understanding [about] keeping AI ethics and transparency in check, Carter has shared several predictions for organizations/leaders to note as we head into 2024:

• The dust will settle—The AI hype will begin to settle, but that doesn’t mean that companies can take a back seat. Rather, it will become necessary for organizations to really examine their approach to AI.
• Knowing your AI supply chain will be critical—We can expect to see growing focus on AI supply chain transparency in 2024 as companies look to ensure they have sufficient safeguards in place to protect against bias and ensure transparency.
• Organizational governance will increase—Vendors will need to be crisp on the value they’re bringing as companies ask more probing questions and lay down more governance. As focus grows, we could see ethical AI procurement become part of ESG [environmental, social, and governance] reporting.

Kudos Calls for Publisher Respondents to SDGs Survey

Publishers, please take 5 minutes to share your organization’s awareness/activities around the SDGs.

At January’s Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) conference, the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows have convened a panel to debate the role of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the scholarly publishing sector—and the sector’s role in changing the world. Ahead of the conference, the panelists are trying to gauge how well people in publishing understand the goals, how strongly they are supported, and what the opportunities and challenges are in terms of expanding SDG activities.

Scholarly publishing colleagues are invited to share your perspective on these issues by completing a quick 5-minute survey: bit.ly/sdg-survey

Taylor & Francis and Future Science Group Join Forces

FSG has 15 fully OA journals, and researchers can choose to publish OA in all of its journals. FSG also has a Plain Language Summary Hub, which “supports authors to make technical content accessible for lay audiences and empowers patients in decision-making about their care.”

For more information, read the press release.

Merriam-Webster Defines Its Word of the Year 2023

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic—the term for something we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever.

A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.

Authentic has a number of meanings including ‘not false or imitation,’ a synonym of real and actual; and also ‘true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.’ Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary.

For more information and other noteworthy words of the year, read the news item.

The Library Marketing Show Advocates for a Social Media Pause

For more information, visit the webpage and view the video.

OCLC Creates Discovery Catalog for Arabic Records

“The Arabic Discovery Catalog supports specific cultural and regional needs around improved discoverability and reach, nationally and internationally. It is our hope that this will mark a significant step forward for libraries and their users in the region, providing greater access and discoverability of these collections,” says Eric van Lubeek, VP of global library services and managing director for OCLC EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and APAC (Asia and Pacific).

For more information, read the press release.

W3C Adds Web of Things Recommendations

For more information, read the press release.

AM Debuts Collection of Amnesty International Primary Sources

The content, covering the first 30 years of Amnesty International after its founding in 1961, comes from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. It includes about 50 hours of oral histories with founders and members, organizational records—reports, meeting agendas and minutes, conference proceedings, etc.—as well as the Urgent Actions series, “produced for international prisoners in immediate danger to request rapid action on their behalf” and the papers of founding member Eric Baker.

For more information, read the news item.

Book Riot Recommends Affordable Book-Related Gifts

I’ve organized this guide to the best gifts for readers under $30 by price point. You can look for gifts under $10, under $20, and then under $30. I’ve kept to non-specific gifts for readers. This means they’re not going to highlight a single author or book but rather encompass reading and books more broadly. In other words, these gifts are thoughtful but just generic enough to not offend a book lover because you accidentally bought them something about Jane Austen, and that’s not their jam.

For more information, read the article.

Emerald Journals Added to ResearchGate for Better Discoverability

“The new partnership will see the pilot Emerald journals benefit from ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Home offering. This will provide enhanced journal visibility through dedicated journal profiles, each journal being prominently represented on all associated article pages and other relevant touch points on the platform that are accessed regularly by ResearchGate’s 25 million members, including nearly 7 million users in the Social Sciences and Humanities,” according to the press release.

For more information, read the press release.