News from the Field
Florida Atlantic University Joins ASERL
Florida Atlantic University Libraries has joined the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) as of April 1, 2026, adding a new milestone in Florida Atlantic University’s continued growth as an R1 research institution. The decision was approved by a vote of ASERL member libraries during the consortium’s fall 2025 membership meeting. As an ASERL member, Florida Atlantic University Libraries will participate in a wide range of collaborative initiatives, including shared collections, professional development programs, and regional partnerships designed to expand access to resources and expertise across member institutions.
Founded in 1956, ASERL brings together leading research libraries across the Southeast to advance collaboration in resource sharing, professional development, and innovative library services. With the addition of Florida Atlantic University, the consortium will expand to forty member institutions working together to broaden access to knowledge and strengthen support for researchers, students, and their communities.
Community Leadership of RightsStatements.org Moves to Digital Scholar
Digital Scholar (DS) is pleased to announce that it has assumed community leadership and organizational stewardship of RightsStatements.org. The statements provide a set of standardized copyright terms for libraries, archives, and museums to inform online visitors how and if their digital cultural heritage works may be reused. As the organizational home for the initiative, DS will collaborate with the RightsStatements.org global user community to update and maintain these standards, ensuring responsiveness to evolving legal, technical, and operational contexts. DS will lead the development of a sustainable model to support the statements over the coming years. The statements are available in sixteen languages and implemented by major cultural institutions and aggregators worldwide, including Europeana, DPLA, and the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, thus supporting international use and interoperability.
This transition follows the tireless work of the Steering Committee, which includes original developers of the Rights Statements vocabulary and its technical infrastructure. Committee members Greg Cram, Emily B. Gore, Melissa Levine, Maarten Zeinstra, Ariadna Matas, and Valentine Charles guided the project through a pivotal moment and worked collectively to identify a new organizational home. Their expertise and commitment have been instrumental in sustaining the project as it matures. Learn more about Digital Scholar at http://digitalscholar.org/.
New from ACRL: Faculty and Librarian Partnerships Two-Volume Set
ACRL announces the publication of Faculty and Librarian Partnerships, Volume 1: Information Literacy and Faculty Empowerment and Volume 2: Customized Program Support, edited by Amy Dye-Reeves and Erica Watson. These books are packed with practical insights, real-world examples, and inspiration for the many types of faculty collaboration—from instruction to technology to outreach to collection development.
Faculty and Librarian Partnerships, Volume 1: Information Literacy and Faculty Empowerment contains ideas, lesson plans, and sample documents for collaborating with faculty on instruction and research. Volume 2: Customized Program Support provides information on discipline-specific projects, leveraging liaison roles, and maximizing the use of special collections. Both volumes contain detailed descriptions of different kinds of collaborations from all types of institutions: one-on-one partnerships, larger team efforts, on campus and with the wider community, virtual collaborations, and strategic organizational alliances.
Academic librarians and disciplinary faculty have many partnership opportunities that can contribute greatly to student learning and experience and the academic community as a whole. Planning and scoping these collaborations—and beginning them with a clear understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities—can help make them as rewarding and beneficial as possible. Whether you’re teaching one-shots or courses, are part of the student success team, or are just navigating the complex world of faculty engagement, Faculty and Librarian Partnerships can provide easy-to-implement strategies, relatable stories, and innovative ideas to inspire and guide your work.
The Faculty and Librarian Partnerships Two-Volume Set is available for purchase, individually and as a set, in print through the ALA Online Store and Amazon.com; as an ebook through the ALA Online Store; via EBSCO, ProQuest, and other ebook vendors; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database Indexes 150,000 Items
On November 1, 2025, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database (SFFRD) editorial team entered item number 150,000 into the database. That number is a milestone, something the original editor never anticipated when the first index card was typed up in the 1970s. Launched as an online, searchable database in 2000, SFFRD is available through Texas A&M’s Cushing Memorial Library & Archives. The database is an open-access project, open to any scholar with an Internet connection and a desire for critical science fiction citations.
SFFRD is designed to cover all aspects of science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural, and weird fiction. History, criticism, commentary, fan writings, and some reviews are all included, though book reviews are left to science fiction and fantasy book review index at this time. Materials are entered by author, title, and imprint, with subject headings added by the bibliographers, along with publication year, publication type, and language. Science fiction generates the largest number of entries, followed by fantasy and horror, in that order. Approximately 90% of the entries are in English. Learn more at http://sffrd.library.tamu.edu.
EBSCO Information Services to Release The New Yorker Magazine Archive
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) and The New Yorker recently announced an agreement to develop The New Yorker Magazine Archive, a digital collection providing full access to a century of award-winning journalism, commentary, fiction, poetry, criticism, and iconic cover art from one of the most influential magazines in American publishing. The New Yorker Magazine Archive offers scholars and students an unparalleled window into cultural and political history across the 20th and 21st century, featuring a complete 100-year run from Volume 1, Issue 1 in 1925 through February 2025. Researchers can explore in-depth reporting on pivotal historical moments, long-form profiles of global leaders and artists, and literary works that have defined generations. The publication’s approach to fact checking and editorial review has made it a trusted resource for academic inquiry and critical analysis. Learn more at https://about.ebsco.com/products/magazine-archives/new-yorker-magazine-archive.
Clarivate Nexus to Launch in 2026
Clarivate has announced Clarivate Nexus, the first academic assistant designed to reconnect students and researchers with library content and services directly in the artificial intelligence (AI) tools they use. Its development represents the next step in the Clarivate Academic AI portfolio, extending Clarivate intelligence across the AI ecosystem. AI tools have become a common part of research and learning workflows, often in place of library or institutional systems. These environments offer speed and convenience but lack the depth, accuracy, and authoritative grounding of the trusted resources that libraries provide. As a result, users miss critical scholarly resources, valuable library collections go underused, and academic work is less firmly grounded in authoritative sources.
Clarivate Nexus is powered by a variety of indexes and content collections, including the Primo and Summon Central Discovery Index, Web of Science citation index, and ProQuest collections. It is developed as a flexible connecting layer that can be implemented across multiple environments. Learn more at https://about.proquest.com/en/news/2026/clarivate-introduces-nexus-connecting-ai-users-to-trusted-academic-resources/.
Tech Bits . . .
Bitwarden is a password manager. Security experts recommend that we use strong, unique passwords for each account—however, the average person is unable to remember dozens of unique passwords. Password managers can recommend passwords when users sign up for a new service or change their password on an existing service. In addition to storing these passwords, password managers can autofill username and passwords in web browsers and on mobile devices.
Although these features are common to most password managers, Bitwarden offers a free version that will meet the needs of the average user. Bitwarden’s code is also open source, which allows for independent audits of the software and for security experts to spot, report, and even propose fixes to security issues.
Bitwarden
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