News from the Field

David Free

AI Competencies for Academic Library Workers Draft Review

The ACRL AI Competencies for Library Workers Task Force invites your feedback on a draft of proposed “AI Competencies for Academic Library Workers” (PDF). The working group is following ACRL procedures for updates and open comment period laid out by the ACRL Standards committee, found on the ACRL website. Please use the feedback form to share your comments and suggestions by March 26, 2025. Further discussion will be held at the ACRL 2025 conference during the presentation “AI Competencies for Library Workers: Shaping the Future of Academic Libraries,” to be held from 10:30-11:30am Central on April 3, 2025. After the close of this review period, the task force will review and incorporate feedback, before sharing with the ACRL Standards Committee and the ACRL Board of Directors. Contact Task Force Co-Chairs Jason Matthew Coleman (coleman@ksu.edu) and Keven Michael Jeffery (kjeffery@sdsu.edu) with questions.

ARL Intensive Learning Program Fellows Selected for 2025 Cohort

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Intensive Learning Program (ILP) Task Force has chosen 20 fellows for the 2025 ILP cohort based on recommendations from the ILP Selection Working Group. The ILP is an eight-month hybrid experience that explores operational aspects of senior-leader portfolios in research libraries and archives as well as responsibilities related to managing those portfolios. ILP Fellows engage in a variety of experiences during the program, including attending the Learning Summit and ARL Association Meeting, participating in an ARL library site visit, joining monthly educational sessions, and completing self-assessments and career-coaching sessions. For more information about the program and the 2025 ILP Fellows, visit the ILP website at https://www.arl.org/category
/our-priorities/learning-at-arl/intensive-learning-program/.

Four Libraries Expand GPO Preservation Steward Agreements

Libraries at the University of Minnesota, the University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa, the University of Kentucky, and the University of South Carolina have expanded upon their Preservation Steward collections with the US Government Publishing Office (GPO). To help libraries meet the needs of efficient government document stewardship in the digital era, GPO has established Preservation Stewards to support continued public access to US government documents in print format. These libraries contribute significantly to the effort to preserve printed documents. Through the agreement, many libraries also serve as digital access partners providing digital access to government information.

Direct to Open Reaches 2025 Funding Goal, Opens Access to 80 New Monographs

The MIT Press is pleased to announce that Direct to Open (D2O) has reached its full funding goal for 2025 and will open access to 80 new monographs and edited book collections in the spring and fall publishing seasons. Among the highlights from the MIT Press’s fourth D2O funding cycle is a new three-year, consortium-wide commitment from the Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) and a renewed three-year commitment from the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA). These long-term partnerships will play a pivotal role in supporting the Press’s open access efforts for years to come.

Launched in 2021, D2O is an innovative sustainable framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single ebooks to a collaborative, library-supported open access model. Many other models offer open access opportunities on a title-by-title basis or within specific disciplines. D2O’s advantage is that it enables a press to provide open access to its entire list of scholarly books at scale, embargo-free, during each funding cycle. Thanks to D2O, all MIT Press monograph authors have the opportunity for their work to be published open access with equal support to traditionally underserved and underfunded disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Learn more at https://direct.mit.edu/books/pages/direct-to-open.

Project MUSE Launches New OA Journals

Project MUSE has announced that two new fully open access journals in cultural studies and transcendentalism have joined the hosting program and are now live on the platform. A biannual publication of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, The Dial publishes essays, reviews, review essays, and creative works on Emerson and transcendentalism, plus the cultures of nineteenth-century America and beyond that shaped and were shaped by both. Nuevos Horizontes is sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and dedicated to disseminating critical texts in the humanities and cultural studies.

Additionally, back issues of Getty Research Journal have now flipped to open access. The journal published its first open access issue in spring 2024, and now numbers 1–18, which launched on Project MUSE in early 2024 but were accessible only to former subscribers, are now also fully open access. This journal presents peer-reviewed articles on the visual arts of all cultures, regions, and time periods. Learn more about Project MUSE at https://muse
.jhu.edu/.

New from ACRL—Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession

ACRL announces the publication of Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession, edited by Melody Lee Rood and Olivia Patterson. The book examines this emerging position through a critical lens and provides insight and advice to help the profession work toward a positive evolution of this important role.

Student success librarian positions, while increasingly common in academic libraries, are still so new to the field that many librarians with this title are the first person in the position and their roles are ambiguous and difficult to define. They often include quantifiable metrics such as retention rates, academic persistence, and graduation rates, as well as elements like student well-being, belonging, and a sense of purpose. This broad scope has intensified already challenging and emotionally taxing work.

In three sections—Theory, Praxis, and Research—Student Success Librarianship explores how to articulate, set boundaries for, and bring our humanity to the role; address student mental health and provide multilingual resources and support; and map both the current state of student success and a vision for its future.

Student success librarians can feel alone in both their love for and critiques of their profession and their roles within it. Student Success Librarianship can help you celebrate your work, find areas of improvement, and offers validation and inspiration.

Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession is available for purchase in print and as an ebook through the ALA Online Store; in print through Amazon.com; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the US or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

Gale Unveils Digital Archive on Global Impact of
The American Civil War

Gale, part of Cengage Group, is helping faculty and researchers explore and understand the transnational impact of the American Civil War. The company has launched The American Civil War: The International Context, a new digital archive that demonstrates the far-reaching involvement of European nations in the American Civil War, shedding light on their internal discussions, reactions to diplomatic overtures from both Union and Confederate forces, and the war’s impact on international politics and society. This first-of-its-kind collection gives researchers and students an unprecedented look into the global ramifications of one of America’s most pivotal conflicts, enabling scholars to analyze the war from a variety of international perspectives and its influence on political history worldwide. Learn more at https://www.gale.com/c/american-civil-war-the-international-context.

Springer Nature Launches New AI Tool

Springer Nature has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tool to help editors and peer reviewers by automating several editorial quality checks and alerting editors to potentially unsuitable manuscripts so that they can be held back from peer review. Developed in-house, this is the latest AI tool planned for integration into Springer Nature’s next generation article submission and processing platform, Snapp, following the inclusion in 2024 of two AI tools to identify fake content. Working in collaboration with researchers and designed to seamlessly integrate with Snapp, it is currently being tested and verified on more than 100 open access (OA) journals, including Scientific Reports, the largest OA journal in the world, and across more than 100,000 submissions.

The AI tool supports editors and peer reviewers by quickly addressing manuscript quality issues, reducing the number of amendments needed, and maintaining the integrity of a high-quality publishing process. In each instance, a human expert double-checks the results before a final decision is made. It marks the next phase of the publisher’s investment in emerging technologies to enhance the publishing experience for researchers, editors, and reviewers, all of which are developed in line with its AI principles. Learn more at
https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/ai.

OverDrive, Ex Libris Launch New Integration for Alma and Primo

OverDrive has announced a new integration with Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, allowing academic institutions to seamlessly discover OverDrive ebooks and audiobooks within the Alma and Primo library services platforms. This integration, highly requested by academic institutions, simplifies access to OverDrive’s extensive collection of digital content, offering a powerful solution to enhance discovery for students, faculty, and researchers. This integration enhances access to digital content for students and faculty, helping academic institutions seamlessly incorporate OverDrive’s digital resources into their library services. While the integration currently supports ebooks and audiobooks, plans for expanded content offerings, such as films and television shows via Kanopy and magazines, are being explored for the future.

Clarivate Reveals Highly Cited Researchers 2024 List

Clarivate has revealed its 2024 list of Highly Cited Researchers—influential researchers at universities, research institutes, and commercial organizations around the world who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research. Analysts at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) have recognized 6,636 Highly Cited Researchers in 2024 from more than 1,200 institutions in 59 nations and regions. The rigorous evaluation and selection process draws on data from the Web of Science Core Collection citation index together with qualitative analysis performed by experts at the ISI at Clarivate.

The list provides valuable insights into the global landscape of top research talent and identifies trends across countries, regions, and institutions. Mainland China and Hong Kong SAR made sizeable gains, while the United States gradually lost share. This trend reflects a geographic, political, and cultural rebalancing of top-tier scientific and scholarly contributions. Learn more at https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/.