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Weekly News Digest
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April 11, 2024 — 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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The AM Archival School for Ukraine Is a Summer Program for Young Professionals
AM is partnering with the Galt Museum & Archives to support an international initiative for preserving Ukrainian cultural heritage. “The AM Archival School for Ukraine, a week-long summer school developed by Andrew Chernevych, Head Archivist and Galt Museum & Archives, will welcome ten young professionals from various regions of Ukraine, including those heavily impacted by conflict, to collaborate and develop their archival knowledge with the support of professionals from a variety of institutions,” AM shares. “Originally piloted in 2023 by Chernevych and the International Council on Archives, the AM Archival School for Ukraine will be hosted by the renowned international archival repository of the Blinken OSA Archivum in Budapest, Hungary.”For more information, read the news item.
ALA Starts National Library Week With a Focus on the Most Challenged Books
ALA published the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023. “The Top 10 Books are featured in Unite Against Book Bans’ Book Résumé resource. Launched in February, these résumés support librarians, educators, parents, students, and other community advocates when they defend books from censorship,” ALA notes. The books are:- Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
- All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
- This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- Flamer by Mike Curato
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Tricks by Ellen Hopkins (tied with the next title)
- Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (tied with the previous title)
- Let’s Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
ALA also rolled out its latest State of America’s Libraries Report, “which highlights the ways libraries and library workers have taken action to address community needs with innovative and critical services, as well as the challenges brought on by censorship attempts.” In addition, ALA revealed the theme for Banned Books Week 2024, which will be held Sept. 22–28. It is Freed Between the Lines, “which honors the ways in which books bring us freedom and that access to information is worth preserving.” For more information, read the press release.
ALA Election Outcomes
On April 8, ALA announced that Raymond Pun won the 2025–2026 ALA presidency. Pun is academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education in California. Cindy Hohl, director of policy analysis and operational support at Kansas City Public Library in Missouri is 2024–2025 ALA president.Brad Warren, dean of libraries at Augusta University in Georgia, was elected ACRL president for 2025–2026. Two members were elected to join the board of directors: Rachel M. Minkin, interim associate dean for teaching and learning at Michigan State University, and Carrie Forbes, director of the School of Undergraduate Studies and university librarian at Southern Oregon University. Dr. Brandy McNeil, deputy director of branch programs and services at The New York Public Library, was elected 2025–2026 PLA president. Two members were elected to join the board of directors: Laura McGrath, deputy director of the Skokie Public Library in Illinois, and Padma Polepeddi, assistant director of public services and community outreach at Jefferson County Public Library in Colorado. Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures—a division of ALA—announced that Kevin A.R. King, director of East Lansing Public Library in Michigan, was elected 2025–2026 Core president. Two members were elected to join the board of directors: Cara Calabrese, acquisitions and access librarian at Miami University, and Amy Swartz, head of library technology at Columbia Law School. Emily Fidelman, head of metadata services at West Virginia University, was elected chair of the Metadata and Collections Section.
Hootsuite Will Buy Talkwalker, Bringing AI to Social Media Management
Social media manager Hootsuite plans to acquire Talkwalker, an AI-powered social listening solution. “Hootsuite exists to help customers unlock the value of their social media relationships. And by acquiring Talkwalker, Hootsuite takes this mission to the next level. By bringing together two complementary category leaders, businesses will, for the first time, have a social media performance engine to turn insights into action into impact—all fueled by AI,” the press release shares.For more information, read the press release.
DPLA Is Seeking a New Steward of America's Digital Heritage
Dominic Byrd-McDevitt, interim director of community engagement at the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), announced:Following up on what we shared last week—that DPLA is launching a search for the next home of our cultural heritage aggregation program—I am excited to announce that we are now accepting expressions of interest, which you can submit via this form. In the time I have spent immersing myself in the DPLA network, I have learned that aggregation remains an important piece of the work libraries do to enable discovery of the record of our past. That work is more important than ever with the shifting technological landscape and other challenges faced by memory institutions. This open call is the first step in a process to identify a healthy long-term home for this work. In parallel, we are in the process of raising a fund that will support this work in its new home, and we will share more in future updates. For more information, read the news item.
ByWater Solutions Celebrates Its 15th Birthday
ByWater Solutions turned 15 in March 2024, marking the milestone with a special episode of the podcast The Library Is Open.CEO Brendan Gallagher says, “15 years!! This has been one of the greatest adventures of creating change in the library world and helping support libraries’ needs in supporting their users.” CRO Nathan Curulla says, “Our dedicated staff of librarians and technologists are the reason for our ongoing successes and their hard work has made ByWater what it is today. Under Brendan’s leadership we have created disruption in a marketplace that needed some shaking up and we are constantly learning about how to improve our services, learn from our mistakes, and make more of an impact for the benefit of libraries each day. We cannot wait to see what the next 15 years brings!” For more information, read the news item.
Iveda and ClearView Asset Protection Leverage AI to Make Public Spaces Safer
Iveda teamed up with ClearView Asset Protection “to help improve local public safety systems, such as AMBER Alerts, major interstate highways, sports stadiums, and more. Leveraging AI-powered surveillance technology, IvedaAI will use data from existing cameras and infrastructure to intelligently monitor and alert for threats including suspicious persons, missing or endangered children, smoke and fire, traffic flow issues, as well as facial and license plate recognition. Deploying IvedaAI, local law enforcement can be quickly notified, analyze and report situations from video data to help locate, track, and isolate danger in real-time.”For more information, read the press release.
Wiley Adds More of Its Journals to ResearchGate
ResearchGate expanded its partnership with Wiley, bringing the number of journals on ResearchGate’s Journal Home platform to 700. “The expanded partnership includes almost all open access journals published by Wiley, including society partners such as the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), as well as a wider range of hybrid journals. All these journals benefit from an enhanced presence and discoverability on ResearchGate,” the press release notes.For more information, read the press release.
Sora Unveils Its First Annual Report Sharing Worldwide Student Reading Data
Sora, the student reading platform from OverDrive, published “its first annual reading report of worldwide student digital reading data for the 2022-2023 school year.” “The State of K-12 Digital Reading,” which is available to download for free after registering, “reveals compelling regional differences, double digit growth in Comics and Graphic Novels and a surprising insight on which months tracked the most time spent reading.”Key findings include the following: - Digital reading in K-12 schools has increased significantly over the past few years. Since 2019, total usage (based on digital book checkouts) has grown 286 percent as the number of schools using the Sora platform more than doubled. In 2022-23, usage continued the trend with 12% growth.
- Reading sessions on the Sora reading app were up more than 8 percent compared to the previous school year (2021-2022), with total books read per student increasing by 3 percent.
- The ebook format accounted for 84 percent of titles opened during the ’22-’23 school year, while audiobooks remain popular with 14 percent. Comics and graphic novels have contributed to the strong ebook usage, more than quadrupling in checkouts and jumping from 31 to 42% of total ebook checkouts since 2019.
For more information, read the press release.
Digital Science Creates Campaign to Study Research Transformation in Response to AI
Digital Science announced the following:A new campaign entitled ‘Research Transformation’ is being launched by Digital Science to celebrate the art of change within the research sector. Arising from the TL;DR initiative at Digital Science, Research Transformation will look at the challenging AI future that lies ahead with an openness to transformation, and—importantly—a willingness to approach these transformations collectively, both within organizations, and across broader research communities. For more information, read the news item.
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Brandi Scardilli
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