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Weekly News Digest
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May 20, 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.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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CCC Expands RightsLink Author Services for Greater Automation
CCC announced that it “is expanding RightsLink Author Services to provide scholarly publishers with a streamlined way to automate and trigger targeted promotional offers and publication charges for authors at key points across the publication lifecycle.” CCC is also offering a “beta version of Ringgold Researchers, a new service that helps scholarly publishers and service providers disambiguate and identify researchers, their affiliations, and research-related connections.”“Scholarly publishers are increasingly experimenting in response to changing market dynamics and shifting business models,” says Emily Sheahan, CCC’s VP and managing director. “RightsLink Author Services aids publishers in these areas, supporting their goals of building relationships with their author community.” For more information, read the press release.
AI Summer Reading List Published by Major News Outlets Highlights Nonexistent Books
Jason Koebler writes the following in “Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist” for 404 Media:The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper’s ‘Best of Summer’ section … [which] contains a guide to summer reads that features real authors and fake books that they did not write[,] was partially generated by artificial intelligence, the person who generated it told 404 Media. … [M]any of the books on the list either do not exist or were written by other authors than the ones they are attributed to. For more information, read the article and its follow-up as well as other coverage (subscriptions required) and the paper’s statement.
eBook Study Group Applauds Connecticut’s Passage of Digital Content Legislation
The eBook Study Group’s Kyle Courtney shares the news that the Connecticut General Assembly passed “legislation to curb restrictive eBook licensing practices that directly interfere with libraries’ ability to provide public access. The bill now heads to Governor Ned Lamont’s desk for signature, marking a major step toward fairer digital content terms that support the library mission.”The press release adds, “The bill is the result of years of research, legal analysis, and multi-state coordination with eBook Study Group. The [Connecticut] bill prohibits publishers from imposing simultaneous restrictions on both the number of times an eBook can be loaned and the duration for which it can be held by a library. The bill’s effectuation is contingent on adoption of similar laws by other states totaling at least 7 million in population.” “Other states need to follow Connecticut’s lead and the roadmap we just laid out,” notes Ellen Paul, executive director of the Connecticut Library Consortium. “This legislation isn’t just about libraries, it’s about standing up for your town, your budget, and your taxpayers. Since the beginning of the digital age, the publishing industry has dictated the terms; now it’s time for every state to push back.” For more information, read the press release.
CCC Integrates Get It Now Into EBSCO Discovery Service
CCC expanded its multiyear strategic agreement with EBSCO Information Services to make CCC’s Get It Now scholarly journal article delivery service available via EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). Students, faculty members, and researchers at higher education institutions can use Get It Now to request and access articles from within EDS that their library does not subscribe to. This purchase for immediate delivery is an alternative option to interlibrary loan.“Our integration with ‘Get It Now’ helps ensure academics can discover and access the high-quality journal content they require to further their research, whether their library subscribes to the journal or not,” says Bonnie Leavitt, EBSCO’s VP of product management. “This comprehensive solution combines EDS’s superior indexing and discovery capabilities with ‘Get It Now’ around-the-clock article purchase and delivery within the research workflow, saving valuable time and resources.” For more information, read the press release.
Technology From Sage Research Explores Academic AI Usage and Confidence
Technology from Sage, a division of Sage, released the fourth installment of its Librarian Futures white paper series: “Librarian Leadership on the AI Frontier” (registration required). Drawing on global surveys of 1,000-plus students and 300 librarians, the data “reveals critical gaps—and opportunities—in how librarians can lead on AI integration in higher education,” Sage notes. “Over half of students reported using AI tools like ChatGPT in their research, but just 8% said their librarians supported them in their use of AI.” In addition, “Students cite uncertainty around academic integrity as a reason for hesitating to use AI in deeper ways.”“The very skills needed to use AI effectively, such as information literacy and critical thinking, are those that librarians excel at, and patron trust in librarians remains high. The call to action is clear: librarians must actively and unapologetically embed themselves in these emerging AI workflows. It’s the most powerful way for the library not just to remain essential, but to lead,” says Matt Hayes, managing director of Technology from Sage. For more information, read the press release.
Innovative Updates Vega Mobile
Innovative introduced a suite of new features for Vega Mobile that are “designed to make [patrons’] library experience more intuitive, personalized, and engaging, whether [they’re] on the go or browsing from the comfort of home.” The tool now has “more intuitive interactions and a refreshed, modern interface” along with new tab types and accessibility improvements. “For library staff, the latest release brings tools that simplify patron engagement and provide deeper insights into user behavior,” Innovative notes.For more information, read the news item.
JSTOR Celebrates Its 30th Birthday
Maria Papadouris, content and community engagement manager for ITHAKA, writes the following in “30 Years of JSTOR: How a Library Shelf Crisis Sparked a Global Archive”: In 1995, JSTOR launched with a mission that felt radical at the time: digitize scholarly journals and make them accessible online to researchers and educators everywhere. As we mark JSTOR’s 30th anniversary in 2025, we’re looking back at how it all began and why that vision continues to matter, especially for the humanities and social sciences. … The [JSTOR] logo, with its ornate, illuminated ‘J’ and classical styling, bridged tradition and innovation. It signaled that JSTOR, while revering the methods of scholarship’s past, hoped to preserve and build upon it in new, enduring ways. … JSTOR was built at a moment of crisis: libraries were running out of space, journal costs were rising, and smaller institutions were being priced out of access to scholarship. But behind that practical challenge was a larger question: Who gets to participate in the conversation of knowledge? For more information, read the blog post.
TLC Rolls Out a White Paper on Using Its Library Solution for Schools
The Library Corp. (TLC) published “Optimizing Library•Solution for Schools for Textbook Management,” a white paper that “explores how school districts can streamline textbook inventory, distribution, and reporting using the same system they trust for library management. It also highlights the system’s ability to manage additional school resources like laptops and musical instruments.” School districts looking to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and ensure accountability in textbook and resource management are the target audience.For more information, read the press release.
People News From Access Innovations, Kudos, IFLA, and SSP
Access Innovations hired Veronica Showers as its VP of business development. Showers has more than 20 years of experience selling cloud-based and online software and content-hosting platforms to a variety of stakeholders, most recently as VP of sales for the Boclips educational video company. Kudos appointed Richard Baxter its new managing director. He succeeds Melinda Kenneway, Kudos’ co-founder and CEO of 12 years, who will continue to be active in the company. Baxter has had a career in the fields of medical communications, healthcare, biotech, and life sciences. IFLA published the results of its election for 2025–2027 governing board members, who will be led by incoming president Leslie Weir. President-elect is Te Paea Paringatai (New Zealand), and treasurer is Stuart Hamilton (Ireland). Governing Board Members at large are Anya Feltreuter (Sweden), Julia Konopka-Zolnierczuk (Poland), Jan Richards (Australia), Lisa Hinchliffe (U.S.), and Silvia Stasselová (Slovakia). The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) shared that Lettie Conrad is The Scholarly Kitchen’s new deputy editor. Conrad is product experience architect at LibLynx and a part-time instructor with the San José State University School of Information. SSP also introduced its newly elected board members for 2025–2026. Damita Snow, director of accessibility and diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy for publications and standards at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), is president-elect. The members at large are Beth Craanen, director of editorial operations at the American Physical Society; Tim Lloyd, CEO of LibLynx; Jennifer Regala, associate director of publishing at Wolters Kluwer Health; and Willa Liburd Tavernier, research impact and open scholarship librarian at Indiana University–Bloomington.
Research Solutions Adds AI-Powered Search to Article Galaxy
Research Solutions integrated “powerful new search capabilities into its Article Galaxy platform. This enhanced search functionality, powered by Scite (the AI platform acquired by Research Solutions in December 2023), allows researchers to search across citation statements from full-text articles—a significant advancement beyond traditional title and abstract searches.” This will help them find more relevant papers, “with AI-powered Full-Text Excerpts leveraging Scite’s technology to provide deeper context and relevance beyond traditional abstract-only search results. Importantly, all existing functionality—including the platform’s streamlined article ordering process, lookup tools, and rights management—remains fully intact and optimized.” For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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