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Weekly News Digest

August 4, 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.

Lucidea Shares How AI Is Changing Knowledge Work

Libraries, archives, and knowledge organizations have long been built on shared assumptions about how information is discovered, organized, trusted, and shared. AI has not overturned those foundations, but it is challenging many of them—creating new expectations, responsibilities, and opportunities for information professionals.

Here are seven assumptions that recent research suggests are beginning to change.

For more information, read the blog post.

GPO Puts Federal Agency Annual Reports on GovInfo

“Annual reports document the work of Federal agencies and provide an important record of Government operations over time,” says GPO director Hugh Nathanial Halpern. “By bringing these reports together in a single, searchable collection on GovInfo, GPO is making it easier to discover and access trusted Government information.”

For more information, read the press release.

OpenAthens Plans Access Lab Americas 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

OpenAthens invites speaker proposals for Access Lab Americas 2026, a bilingual event for attendees across North, Central, and South America, with sessions in English and Spanish.

Access Lab, OpenAthens’ flagship international conference, marks a major milestone in 2026 as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. To celebrate a decade of global collaboration and knowledge sharing, OpenAthens will host a dedicated half-day regional edition of the event on Wednesday 18 November 2026. For the first time, the programme will feature sessions in both English and Spanish, bringing together library and publisher professionals from across the region.

As a leader in remote federated authentication, OpenAthens is excited to bring together its Americas community for an engaging programme of collaborative learning, meaningful networking and insightful discussions around the challenges, trends and opportunities shaping the information industry across the region.

The event will feature a keynote presentation from Leo Lo, university librarian and dean, special advisor to the provost on AI literacy, at the University of Virginia. As a renowned voice on AI and governance in libraries, Leo will explore a timely and practical question for librarians: When an AI company wants you to use your archival content or collections for training, what should you do?

His session will introduce a governance framework designed to support libraries and publishers navigate AI-related requests with more confidence, providing practical guidance and discussing the risks and responsibilities from the institutions.

To help shape this milestone, OpenAthens is now inviting speaker proposals for the conference program. We welcome submissions in Spanish and English, from librarians, publishers, and information professionals with ideas, experiences, or innovations to share. The deadline for proposals is Friday 14 August 2026.

About Access Lab 2026

Now in its tenth year, Access Lab continues to provide a trusted platform for open conversations, practical case studies, and collaborative learning across the information community. In 2026, the program highlights regional perspectives while continuing to explore key international themes around access, digital inclusion, and user experience.

Over the past decade, Access Lab has grown into a truly global event, welcoming more than 2,000 attendees, from over 60 countries. The new Americas-focused edition reflects the strong engagement from the region, prompting the launch of a dedicated regional edition in 2026 to provide a focused space for regional priorities, challenges, and innovation, with content available both in English and Spanish for the first time.

Join as a Speaker

This is your chance to contribute to Access Lab Americas 2026, a dedicated regional edition designed to reflect the priorities, experiences, and insights of the Americas community. Whether you’re a publisher or librarian, we want to hear your ideas and experiences.

We especially encourage proposals showcasing real-world challenges, successful projects, lessons learned, or innovative approaches from across the region.

We’re looking for speakers to contribute to:

• Case studies
• 10-minute lightning talks
• Panel discussions
• Discussion groups

This is a great opportunity to speak, raise your profile, and connect with a global audience.

Topics for 2026 include: 

• AI in libraries
• Impact of library budgets
• User experience and accessibility
• Federated authentication and seamless access
• Disinformation, security and user privacy
• Research integrity

How to Submit Your Session Idea

Get inspired to speak at Access Lab 2026 by watching the 2025 Access Lab sessions and submit your proposal for the Americas edition by Friday 14 August 2026 by completing the short online form. 

Register to Attend

Registration is now open! If you’d prefer to attend rather than present, you can register for the half-day online event here. 

For more information please contact:

contact@openathens.net
+44 (0)117 450 0440
openathens.net

About OpenAthens

OpenAthens is a global leader in federated identity and access management, helping libraries and publishers connect people to knowledge. Founded in the University of Bath in 1995 as the “Athena project” it’s aimed at simplifying access to digital content as the Internet started to become more present in our daily life. Today, OpenAthens is part of Jisc, a not-for-profit membership organization based in the UK, that delivers the vital digital infrastructure and shared services that inform, protect and promote education and research.  

OpenAthens is trusted by over 3,200 libraries in nearly every country in the world, ensuring their students and researchers have secure remote access to digital resources both on and off site.  

With a commitment to innovation, inclusivity, and simplicity, OpenAthens continues to shape the future of digital access – one connection at a time.

View our privacy notice and our overarching Jisc privacy notice. 

Libby Joins Forces With Perlego for Increased Access to Academic Content

As of Aug. 1, 2026, U.S. academic institutions can purchase Perlego as a Libby Extra, giving them “unlimited access to a catalog with over 1 million digital academic and personal development books. Simultaneously, Perlego ingrains reading and studying tools within their platform to enhance the learning experience. Students can discover the academic texts that are part of their coursework and beyond it, helping to eliminate some of the financial and physical barriers that come with institutional learning.” 

For more information, read the press release.

ACS Rolls Out New Branding for Its 150th Anniversary

The organization shares, “The new identity introduces an updated logo, color palette, and design system inspired by the continuous nature of scientific progress. Just as each discovery builds on those that came before it, the brand reflects how ideas, people, and disciplines connect to create what’s next.”

For more information, read the news release.

AASL Studies Student Digital Citizenship Post-COVID

“This research found that school librarians are largely reporting qualitative and quantitative declines in digital citizenship amongst students. Many librarians report students with gaps in knowledge of technology or students participating in inappropriate behavior online,” the press release states.

For more information, read the press release.

EBSCOhost Adds Two New AI-Assisted Research Features

With AI Conversational Search, users can ask research questions in natural language and get concise answers that are supported by EBSCO-content-based citations. “As part of a phased rollout, AI Conversational Search is launching first on the Business Searching Interface for Business Source Ultimate subscribers, with availability expanding to additional EBSCOhost databases over the coming months,” according to the press release.

With Ask This Document (AI Ask), users can ask questions about the content of full-text documents. The press release states, “Responses are generated from the document itself, helping researchers quickly assess relevance, find key points, and decide whether it supports their research.”

For more information, read the press release.

ProQuest Explores How Students Think About AI

For the past two years, much of the conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has centered on how students are using it. Are they using these tools to learn more effectively, or to bypass the work of learning?

Findings from a recent Clarivate survey of more than 500 undergraduate and graduate students from around the world and across disciplines suggest the answer is more nuanced and encouraging than the debate often allows. Ninety-five percent of students reported using AI for school projects or assignments, up from 45% in a similar survey conducted in 2024. Institutional policies, meanwhile, have changed relatively little. The result is a growing disconnect between students’ use of AI and institutions’ efforts to guide it.

Those findings are gathered in Students Are Sprinting Ahead: What 500 Students Told Us About AI in Academic Work, a new report on how students use AI, where they struggle and what they want next.

For more information, read the blog post.

Zendy Looks at How Libraries Can Responsibly Leverage AI Summaries

Researchers today face a familiar challenge: there is more scholarly information available than ever before, but limited time to explore it all. As academic publishing continues to grow, finding relevant research and understanding key findings quickly has become increasingly difficult. 

AI-generated summaries have emerged as one potential solution. By providing quick overviews of articles and research papers, these tools can help users navigate large amounts of information more efficiently.

However, for academic libraries, the conversation goes beyond convenience. Libraries are built on trust, accuracy, and access to reliable knowledge. As AI in academic libraries becomes more common, an important question must be considered: can libraries rely on AI summaries while maintaining the standards users expect?

For more information, read the blog post.

Digital Science Rolls Out Papers AI Research Ecosystem

Digital Science adds, “Data is never used to train models, and users have the option to use Papers AI completely locally, ensuring no data ever leaves their hardware.” Also, each “AI-suggested change appears as a reviewable edit, which a researcher can accept, reject, or adjust before it becomes part of the document – nothing enters a project unreviewed.”

For more information, read the press release.