|
|
Weekly News Digest
 |
May 19, 2026 — 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.
|
Ithaka S+R Shares Findings From Its 2025 Library Survey
Ellen Carroll, Tracy Bergstrom, Ioana G. Hulbert write the following in “Findings From the 2025 US Library Survey” for Ithaka S+R:Every three years Ithaka S+R administers a survey of academic library deans and directors to better understand how they conceptualize their work—what they prioritize, how they make decisions, and how they align the library to their parent institution’s mission. … Now in its seventh cycle, the survey continues to track core functions of the library over time. To capture changes in the higher education landscape, this newest cycle also introduced questions on the use of generative artificial intelligence, engagement with emerging scholarly communication models, and strategies for responding to financial constraints. For more information and key findings, read the blog post.
A New Book About Truth in the Age of AI Ironically Contains AI Falsehoods
Benjamin Mullin writes the following in “Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.” for The New York Times:The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged … that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I. The author, Steven Rosenbaum, whose book ‘The Future of Truth’ was released this month to great fanfare, incorporated more than a half-dozen misattributed or fake quotes in sections of the book. … He said that the inclusion of the incorrect quotes was an accident and that he had ‘no intention of fabricating any viewpoints’ while writing the book. For more information, read the article.
EBSCO Information Services Introduces a Child and Adolescent Studies Database
EBSCO Information Services launched Child & Adolescent Studies Source, a comprehensive database of full-text journals, magazines, and ebooks “covering the latest research in child and adolescent growth and development. The resource supports interdisciplinary instruction and collaborative research for faculty, graduate students and professionals, bringing together authoritative content to help users explore complex issues and inform teaching and program development.” The database “provides insight into cognitive, social, emotional and mental health factors shaping development from early childhood through adolescence,” with topics covering social media use, technology in the classroom, mental health, and more. For more information, read the press release.
EBSCO Partners With Perplexity to Link AI Output to Peer-Reviewed Journals
EBSCO Information Services joined forces with Perplexity to bring “content from EBSCOhost research databases into Perplexity’s Premium Sources, giving users access to peer-reviewed, full-text journals directly within Perplexity’s answer engine, and Perplexity Computer, where users can carry out multi-step research tasks.” EBSCO continues, “For researchers, students, and knowledge workers who rely on authoritative sourcing, the integration means fewer dead ends and less context-switching. When Perplexity draws from EBSCOhost to answer a research question or complete a multi-step task, users can trace the response back to the underlying research paper. All users will see a reference with a link, and users with institutional EBSCOhost logins will be able to click through to the actual primary source.” For more information, read the press release.
The EBSCOhost AI Exchange Platform Will Connect AI Systems With Scholarly Content
EBSCO Information Services launched EBSCOhost AI Exchange, a platform connecting a range of AI systems and applications (commercial AI tools, institutional models, enterprise platforms, retrieval-based applications, etc.) to licensed, peer-reviewed scholarly content. This will help ensure that “AI-generated answers are grounded in sources users can verify and cite,” EBSCO shares. “EBSCOhost AI Exchange sits between publishers, AI systems, and end users, providing a governed framework that supports licensed access, proper attribution, and content delivery aligned with existing subscriptions and permissions.” For more information, read the press release.
Fabricated Encyclopedia Mimics a Real Scholarly Archive
Faustine Ngila writes the following in “This Wikipedia Clone Is Built Entirely on Things That Never Happened” for ImpactNews: A new Wikipedia-style website is built entirely from AI hallucinations, offering users an endless stream of fabricated knowledge that nonetheless manages to feel strangely coherent. The project, called Halupedia, presents itself as an ‘infinite’ encyclopedia in which every search term or clicked link triggers a large language model on the backend to generate new content on the fly. The result is a sprawling system of invented facts, presented in the formal tone of a 19th-century scholarly archive. … From the moment users land on the homepage, the project makes clear that it is an experiment in artificial fabrication. But once inside, the experience can resemble a functioning knowledge base, complete with hyperlinks, citations, and academic-style quotations. Some entries even include footnotes, which are themselves also invented. For more information, read the article.
DPLA Receives Grant to Bring Libraries Into the AI Conversation
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) announced the following:We’re excited to share that the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has received a $1.1 million grant from Humanity AI to ensure that libraries play a central role in shaping how artificial intelligence enters public life. … With this grant, DPLA will work with the independent nonprofit research institute Data & Society and libraries across the country to ensure that emerging AI technologies serve the public good. By prioritizing librarians and the communities they serve, we hope to maximize the value and minimize the harms of these tools. For more information, read the announcement.
Book Riot Celebrates Students Fighting Censorship in Pennsylvania
Kelly Jensen writes the following in “‘I Cannot Let These Doctrines Be the Face of My Education’: Elizabethtown (PA) Students Protest Book Bans” for Book Riot:[Elizabethtown Area School District] students, educators, and community members have watched books be targeted for years. Among the wide-ranging censorship tactics includes one last year, when the district’s board voted to simply eliminate all funding for the middle and high school libraries. That means no new books have been added to the collection. The momentum has continued into this year, when the board demanded the removal of several books from curriculum and instructed educators to come up with alternatives on a compressed timeline. The educators jumped through the hoops, only to be told the new titles were also inappropriate. Students aren’t taking it quietly, either. Like their peers in Central York High School—a 40 minute drive south of Elizabethtown—students have been protesting the board’s censorship agenda. The protests began in the dead of winter, the weather far from amenable for being outside. But students showed up, their voices and beliefs in an education free from bias and far-right indoctrination more important than anything else. For more information, read the article.
A Czech National Library Taps Clarivate to Modernize Its Library Services Platform
The Czech National Library of Technology chose Clarivate to deliver its new unified library services and discovery platform as part of a 10-year agreement. “The cloud-based library solution will help the National Library of Technology advance the modernization of academic and research libraries in the Czech Republic while supporting the Library’s vision for national-scale discovery and resource management,” the press release states. “The National Library of Technology is the largest and oldest library of science and technology literature in the Czech Republic, providing content, resources and services to students, faculty and researchers, as well as the public. The Library also cooperates closely with university and research libraries in the Czech Republic, including those of the Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.”For more information, read the press release.
Playaway Products Celebrates America250 With a New Collection
Playaway Products issued an email update to customers sharing its new collection, America’s Semiquincentennial in the Library. It features titles such as The Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, “We the People” Is All the People, and Jefferson on Race.
For more information, view the collection.
AM Rolls Out a Resource on Shakespeare in the Silent Film Era
AM published the Shakespeare in Silent Film audiovisual resource, which is “drawn exclusively from the archives of the British Film Institute (BFI). With material from Britain, Western Europe, the USA and Australia, these early cinematic adaptions of Shakespeare’s plays offer valuable resources for teaching and research in theatre, film history, and English literature.”AM continues, “The collection includes professional and amateur productions, ranging from direct adaptations to original narratives inspired by Shakespeare, as well as travelogues and newsreels. These films reflect Shakespeare’s enduring impact in the early twentieth century as silent cinema sought cultural legitimacy and appealed to middle-class audiences.” For more information, read the press release.
Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor
Brandi Scardilli
|
