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Weekly News Digest
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June 19, 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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GAO Finds Trump Administration in Violation of Law for IMLS Funding Cuts
Kelly Jensen writes the following in “Trump Overstepped His Authority by Dismantling the IMLS; Can Be Sued by Comptroller General” for Book Riot: This week, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Trump administration violated the 1974 Impound Control Act (ICA) by gutting the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The ICA permits a President to withhold obligated funds only under strict and limited circumstances. The ICA is a tool of federal checks and balances, ensuring that the legislation passed by Congress is executed by the President as signed. Violations of the ICA are subject to legal ramifications by the US Comptroller General. For more information, read the article.
A Timeline of the Trump Administration's Attacks on Libraries
Anthony Aycock writes the following in “Trump’s Relentless Attacks on American Libraries” for EveryLibrary’s Medium page:Throughout the first few months of the Trump administration, we’ve seen its relentless attacks on American institutions. … [First,] Trump signs an executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose purpose is ‘modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.’ Its activities would soon grow beyond that narrow mission. For the complete timeline, read the article.
The Libraries Opening Public Domain Archives for AI Training
Matt O’Brien writes the following in “AI Chatbots Need More Books to Learn From. These Libraries Are Opening Their Stacks” for the Associated Press (AP):Everything ever said on the internet was just the start of teaching artificial intelligence about humanity. Tech companies are now tapping into an older repository of knowledge: the library stacks. Nearly one million books published as early as the 15th century—and in 254 languages—are part of a Harvard University collection being released to AI researchers. … Cracking open the vaults to centuries-old tomes could be a data bonanza for tech companies battling lawsuits from living novelists, visual artists and others whose creative works have been scooped up without their consent to train AI chatbots. For more information, read the article.
OASPA Plans Webinar on Innovative OA Publishing Formats
OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association) will host a free webinar (registration required) on July 2, 2025, that is titled Rethinking Innovative Open Scholarly Outputs: Practice, Recognition, and Impact. It “will explore the landscape of innovative open access publishing formats, especially those that go beyond traditional monographs[, looking] at their visibility, practical applications, and how they are currently assessed within research evaluation systems. Despite their growing importance, such outputs are often overlooked in traditional academic assessment frameworks.”For more information, read the announcement.
GetFTR Retraction and Errata Feature in Use by More Organizations
Get Full Text Research (GetFTR) announced the following:The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) have implemented the GetFTR Retraction and Errata feature on their journal platforms, significantly enhancing the visibility of corrections and retractions within their cited research. The integration was carried out in close partnership with Atypon—RSNA and SEG’s journal platform provider. This new feature appears on journal article references, meaning readers can now immediately see if any cited articles have been updated, corrected, or retracted—directly within the reference list. This added layer of transparency ensures that users are aware of critical updates not only within the article they are reading, but also in the broader body of literature it cites. For more information, read the news item.
NISO Works to Address AI and Interoperability in Scholarly Publishing
Todd Carpenter writes the following in “We Need AI Standards for Scholarly Publishing: A NISO Workshop Report” for The Scholarly Kitchen:At times, it seems the number of challenges is increasing faster than the number of solutions AI tools are solving. Several initiatives are underway to address these challenges. Notably last month, NISO (National Information Standards Organization—full disclosure, my employer) hosted a series of workshops for scholarly publishing leadership to identify and prioritize efforts to address some of the challenges around AI and interoperability. These collective actions can help reduce the number of issues and we can all benefit from the opportunities AI provides. For more information, read the blog post.
EveryLibrary Institute to Host Civics Webinars
The EveryLibrary Institute announced that it will “partner with democracy organizations to celebrate the Civic Season with a series of webinars on our Facebook Live from Juneteenth through July 4th.” The announcement continues, “In this webinar series, we will discuss how your library can participate in voter registration efforts, promote early voting, create accessible polling places, provide nonpartisan candidate and issue guides, partner with your local League of Women Voters, and more.” For more information, read the news item.
Clarivate Rolls Out the 2025 Journal Citation Reports for JCR's 50th Anniversary
Clarivate “released the 2025 update to the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). This is the 50th anniversary of the industry-leading annual reports, which provide a comprehensive overview of the world’s leading and trusted academic journals, offering academic institutions, researchers, and publishers the ability to gauge journals’ trustworthiness and impact.” Clarivate continues, “The annual reports provide a rich array of publisher–neutral data, metrics, and analysis to enhance user understanding of journal performance, including the widely recognized Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and the Journal Citation Indicator.”For 2025, the JCR includes data from 22,249 journals, more than 6,200 of which were published via gold OA. Journals from 111 countries received a JIF; 618 journals received a JIF for the first time. For more information, read the press release.
People News for June 2025
Sage gave its sixth-annual 10-Year Impact Awards to the two-most-cited papers published in Sage Journals in 2014: “Bibliometric Methods in Management and Organization” by Ivan Zupic and Tomaž Cater in Organizational Research Methods and “Qualitative Content Analysis: A Focus on Trustworthiness” by Satu Elo, Maria Kääriäinen, Outi Kanste, Tarja Pölkki, Kati Utriainen, and Helvi Kyngäs in Sage Open. The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) handed out its Appreciation Award at its 47th Annual Meeting in Baltimore to Erin Foley, director of rightsholder relations at CCC; Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen, VP of marketing at Silverchair; and Sean Pidgeon, executive editor at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). SSP’s Emerging Leader Award went to Ginny Herbert, associate publisher of researcher engagement and experience at AIP Publishing, and Kasia Repeta, an analyst for global outreach and publishing systems at Duke University Press. SSP gave its Distinguished Service Award to Emilie Delquie, SSP secretary/treasurer 2020–2026. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) introduced new board members for the term that begins July 1, 2025. The DOI Foundation’s Jonathan Clark will move up to chair of the board from vice chair, the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation’s Jill Morris becomes vice chair, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Robert Wheeler ends his term as chair to become past chair. There are five new directors who will serve a 3-year term: Laura Cox, senior director of publishing industry data at CCC; Cynthia Hudson Vitale, associate dean for technology strategy and digital services at Johns Hopkins University; Alison Larkin, associate director of peer review services at IEEE; Leslie Sharp, dean of libraries at Georgia Institute of Technology; and Monica Westin, associate director of content and discovery at Manchester Metropolitan University. Jennifer Schivas, CEO of 67 Bricks, was named one of EQL:Her’s 2025 InspiringFifty. “In partnership with Informa and Founders Forum Group, [InspiringFifty is] spotlighting fifty exceptional women who are leading the way—because now, more than ever, we need to back women founders and leaders,” 67 Bricks states.
Clarivate Creates ProQuest Education Research Index to Leverage ERIC Data
Clarivate is continuing to commit to the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). The company shares, “In response to customer feedback and widespread concern from libraries regarding the future of ERIC, Clarivate is launching the free ProQuest Education Research Index, which includes ERIC data. ProQuest Education Research Index includes ERIC alongside ProQuest Supplemental Education Index, a newly created index that covers the majority of scholarly journals currently indexed by ERIC. It is designed to ensure continued coverage of as many ERIC-indexed titles as possible and will grow over time.”Chris Burghardt, Clarivate’s SVP of product management, academia, and government, says, “Following uncertainty around the future of ERIC, the introduction of ProQuest Education Research Index will ensure that these vital data remain accessible to all. It will enable libraries to plan long term and beyond, and to continue to serve their communities effectively.” For more information, read the blog post.
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Brandi Scardilli
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