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Weekly News Digest
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April 22, 2025 — 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.
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Spring 2025 People News
The director of the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), Hugh Nathanial Halpern, appointed five new members to the Depository Library Council (DLC), which advises the GPO director on policy matters related to the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP): Melanie Sims, head of access services and government information at Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center; Michael Cerbo, head of government publications and metadata and content management and chair of the technical services department at the University of Rhode Island; Malwina Bardoni Cross, head librarian at the U.S. Census Bureau; Ariella Mason, special collections coordinator for the Fresno County Public Library; and Jonathan Underwood, assistant professor and database management and government documents/reference librarian at Tuskegee University. These new members will serve from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2028.OverDrive named Renee Davenport its first VP of education. In this role, she “will lead OverDrive’s strategy to expand digital access in schools, deepen engagement with educators, and support literacy and learning outcomes for all students through [the] Sora” reading app. Davenport has experience in both the classroom and the educational technology industry: She began her career as an elementary school teacher, and she was most recently VP and general manager of education partnerships at Learning Ally. Diane Goldenberg-Hart, assistant executive director at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), posted an obituary for Clifford Lynch, “a visionary leader in the field of networked information and libraries, and the esteemed executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), an organization dedicated to advancing scholarship and education through the strategic use of information technology. Lynch, who led CNI since 1997, has left an indelible mark on the information technology, higher education, and library communities. He was due to retire in June 2025.” Goldenberg-Hart continues, “Known for his kindness, warmth, and humble disposition, Lynch was highly skilled at fostering connections across organizations, sectors, and professions.” His “tireless commitment and visionary leadership will have an enduring impact and will continue to inspire future generations.” Cengage Group made Justin Singh EVP and general manager of its global workforce skills business, Cengage Work. “Singh will focus on shaping and scaling the business to help workers protect and build their careers across high-growth sectors including healthcare, technology, manufacturing and skilled trades,” Cengage Group notes. He was previously chief transformation and strategy officer at McGraw Hill. Don Hawkins, author of Don’s Conference Notes for Against the Grain, retired from writing his column and issued a farewell, with colleagues including Katina Strauch reminiscing about their time working with him.
OASPA Introduces Project to Study the OA Transition
OASPA is launching the Next 50% project, which will “seek consensus and pathways forward for the ‘next 50%’ of the open access transition. This is not just about doing more open access, or converting more paywalled content to open access, but about navigating the transition to openness in a fuller sense. … We suggest that the true transition is not moving from 50% to 100% open access, but transitioning to a system that is open for all scholars, and all ways of knowing.”OASPA continues, “The project will acknowledge and actively engage publishing organisations across a variety of models and disciplines, many already delivering 100% open access. Sector-wide transition includes those operating on APCs and Read & Publish/Transformative open access publishing deals; those using Subscribe to Open and other forms of collective action; free to read, free to publish open access enabled through grant, society, library, or other funding; as well as open infrastructures and platforms. Libraries, consortia, and funders who pay for, support and invest in publishing are vital partners, and will be involved as well.” For more information, read the news item.
Resources on the Trump Administration's First 100 Days
The following are some news outlets that have compiled content about the Trump administration’s first 100 days in office.Clinton administration (1994−2000) senior advisor Doug Sosnik writes an opinion guest essay for The New York Times, “Why Trump’s 100-Day Blitz May Lead to a Historic Bust.” He states, “It is safe to say that the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency will be considered the most consequential of any in modern history.” The New York Times also has a running tracker of “the actions and significant statements of President Trump and his administration during the first 100 days,” broken down by day and updated nearly daily. PBS NewsHour Classroom posted a teaching guide, Tracking the First 100 Days of Trump’s Second Term, that features lessons on topics including immigration and citizenship, the economy, criminal enforcement, and foreign policy. POLITICO published Trump’s First 100 Days as President, which features “[t]he latest news, analysis and updates on the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term as president.” The Verge offers a timeline, Trump’s First 100 Days: All the News Affecting the Tech Industry, on which Verge staffers “keep track of all the ways Trump is leaving his mark on tech in his first 100 days in office. … This time, Trump has the backing of many tech billionaires. …”
How 'AI Slop' Became Politicized
Nesrine Malik writes the following in “With ‘AI Slop’ Distorting Our Reality, the World Is Sleepwalking Into Disaster” for The Guardian:There are two parallel image channels that dominate our daily visual consumption. In one, there are real pictures and footage of the world as it is: politics, sport, news and entertainment. In the other is AI slop, low-quality content with minimal human input. Some of it is banal and pointless—cartoonish images of celebrities, fantasy landscapes, anthropomorphised animals. … The range and scale of the content is staggering. … A new genre of AI slop is rightwing political fantasy. There are entire YouTube videos of made-up scenarios in which Trump officials prevail against liberal forces. The White House account on X jumped on a trend of creating images in Studio Ghibli style. … These pictures and videos join an infinite stream of others that violate physical and moral laws. The result is profound disorientation. You can’t believe your eyes, but also what can you believe if not your eyes? Everything starts to feel both too real and entirely unreal. For more information, read the article.
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Brandi Scardilli
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