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Weekly News Digest
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October 1, 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.
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EveryLibrary Plans Banned Books Week 2026 Author Talks
EveryLibrary announced its lineup of Banned Books Week 2026 events, featuring 24 live conversations with more than 40 authors, creators, and guests. “Each day features live conversations designed for readers, librarians, educators, authors, and everyone who believes in the freedom to read,” EveryLibrary shares. “Banned Books Week brings readers and authors together to talk about the books that have been challenged, the stories that matter, and the importance of keeping books accessible to everyone.”The talks kick off Oct. 5 with Mark Vonnegut, who will discuss his father Kurt Vonnegut’s fights against censorship, his support for libraries, and “the enduring belief that telling the truth through literature is one of the most powerful acts of freedom.” For more information, read the news item.
Edlio Accessible Documents Ensures PDF Accessibility for School Websites
The Edlio K–12 communications platform introduced Edlio Accessible Documents, “an AI-powered tool that improves PDF accessibility in multiple ways, creating HTML versions of each document while also providing tools to remediate the original PDF.” The press release continues, “As schools and districts work to improve digital accessibility ahead of upcoming ADA Title II deadlines, PDFs have posed a particular challenge, as they are not easily remediated, and there are often large numbers of them on school or district sites. Edlio Accessible Documents addresses both of these issues” as it fully integrates into the Edlio CMS. It’s also available as a standalone solution. For more information, read the press release.
NISO Opens Its Accessibility Remediation Metadata Standard for Public Comment
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) made its draft Accessibility Remediation Metadata (ARM) standard available for public comment through Nov. 9, 2026. NISO notes that its FRAME (Federating Repositories of Accessible Materials for Education) project “and its resulting EMMA platform (Educational Materials Made Accessible), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aimed to reduce redundant work and promote sharing of remediated resources by creating a metadata model for describing the remediation process in detail. The [ARM] Working Group was established to extend, refine, and standardize the EMMA metadata model to meet the needs of the broader accessibility community.”“Accessibility requirements vary significantly among people with disabilities. For example, a blind user may require mathematical content encoded in MathML and long descriptions for complex images. A person with dyslexia may benefit from a reflowable EPUB that supports font customization,” says Bill Kasdorf, ARM Working Group co-chairperson. “ARM metadata enables these features to be described in detail, making it easier for individuals and institutions to locate resources that meet a particular individual’s requirements—a common need in libraries and college classes.” For more information, read the press release.
Wiley Adds Two New OA Journals to Its Advanced Portfolio
Wiley is launching two new journals as part of its Advanced Portfolio: Advanced Medicine and Advanced Healthy Aging. They are now open for submissions.Advanced Medicine is an OA, broad-scope journal that “bridges translational innovation, digital health, AI-driven clinical intelligence, and population health policy—welcoming research that crosses traditional boundaries between specialties.” It is geared to research scientists, clinicians, and public health leaders who can implement practices and policies that lead to measurable improvements in human health around the world. Advanced Healthy Aging is an OA, interdisciplinary journal that explores the science of aging and why people age differently and “seeks to advance the science of healthspan and heterogeneity in aging trajectories.” Fields include molecular and systems biology, clinical and translational science, population research, and public health. It focuses on healthy aging rather than late-stage diseases. For more information, read the press release.
Voter Count Debuts to Expand Access to L2’s National Voter File
L2 and IVC Media joined forces to create Voter Count, an AI agent that answers questions about L2’s national voter file using natural language. It is designed for campaign staffers, consultants, journalists, pollsters, researchers, and advocacy organizations in need of reliable voter data. “Voter Count is the only AI tool directly connected to a national voter file, with more than 217 million registered voters,” the press release states. “With Voter Count, users type [a] question and receive aggregate counts and breakdowns by geography, party registration, demographics, and vote history.”Voter Count doesn’t surface individual voter records, personally identifiable information, or bulk exports. Queries run in a secure environment. Plans start at $49 per month, with a 30-day free trial available. For more information, read the press release.
Sage Will Publish a New OA Journal on Disinformation
Sage is launching Disinformation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, a peer-reviewed, OA publication that will examine “how disinformation is produced, circulated, and understood across societies and cultures” in contexts such as “politics and elections, war and conflict, science, health, climate change, and the environment.” It will publish its first issue in January 2027 and is now accepting submissions.“Disinformation is a pressing challenge for societies around the world, and understanding it requires perspectives from across disciplines and cultures,” says Rachel Hunter, VP of journals editorial at Sage. “The launch of Disinformation: An Interdisciplinary Journal is timely as the need for rigorous research and debate in this area is more important than ever. Through international and interdisciplinary collaboration, this journal will help deepen understanding of disinformation, its impact and how societies respond to it.” For more information, read the press release.
Lucidea Explores How to Set AI Boundaries in Libraries and Other Institutions
Clare Bilobrk writes the following in “When AI-Powered Systems Challenge Professional Values in Libraries, Archives, Museums, and KM” for Lucidea’s Think Clearly blog:As AI moves further into discovery platforms, repositories, catalogs, and workplace systems, [a] question follows: how should organizations respond when a technically capable system conflicts with the principles they exist to uphold? … The [recently released ALA] guidance [on AI] is aimed at libraries, but the underlying question extends across archives, museums, and knowledge management more broadly. These organizations hold different collections and serve different communities. However, they share responsibilities for protecting information, preserving context, supporting access, and exercising professional judgment. So, what happens when technology begins to challenge those responsibilities? For more information, read the blog post.
Cengage Shares Its Latest Data on Recent-Graduate Employability
Cengage rolled out the 2026 Graduate Employability Report, its sixth collection of insights from recent graduates, educators, and employers. It “finds the connection between education and employment is changing as rising employer expectations redefine what it means to be career-ready.” Other key findings include the following:- 91% of all recent grads have felt at least some pressure to accept any available job, rather than one that is the right fit for them
- 77% of graduates believe employers expect more experience than an entry-level candidate should reasonably have
- 62% of instructors [say] they have had to do more in recent years to prepare students for entry-level employment
- 53% [of graduates] chose not to apply to entry-level jobs in their field because they felt underqualified, up from 48% in 2025
- 37% [of graduates] believe their education was worth the cost, down significantly from 68% in the inaugural 2022 report
For more information, read the press release.
ZDNET Explores the Trustworthiness of AI Tools
Charlie Osborne writes the following in “Rogue AI Incidents Hit ‘Tens of Thousands’: Can Businesses Trust These Tools?” for ZDNET:OpenAI is pausing AI training due to security concerns, while Anthropic models have been linked to four cases of its AI hacking external systems. The HuggingFace friendly-fire hack by an OpenAI model also hacked systems it shouldn’t have been able to access. AI-on-AI hacks, prompt injection attacks, weaknesses in AI browsers, and calls for implementing AI kill switches all point to the same issue: AI might be smart, but it’s not inherently secure. It even appears that its developers can’t handle their own creations, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and security researchers reportedly investigating “tens of thousands” of security incidents related to AI. For more information, read the article.
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Brandi Scardilli
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