News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Contemplating the open access publishing landscape, Google releases Scholar Labs, and celebrating the latest book awards

Posted on November 21, 2025 in News

Squaring up to the OA Punching Bag

Scholarly Kitchen chef Rick Anderson has posted a two-parter that pushes back on a pair of the open access community’s core beliefs—that OA is the solution to the “morally unacceptable” practice of charging for access to scholarly content and that this outcome is inevitable. In Part 1, Anderson undercuts the inevitability claim by turning to the data. Using STM’s report on global uptake of open access, he points out that, after a slight dip in 2014, subscription-only publishing has been on the rise for the last ten years, positively spiking in 2023. In fact, subscription content still represents the majority of articles, reviews, and conference papers. Meanwhile Gold Access content has risen steadily, while Green and Bronze have spent the last ten years in a flattened trajectory before declining in 2023.  In Part 2, Anderson presents a “modest manifesto” which goes after the moral police and argues for a “pluralistic and diverse ecosystem” of scholarly publishing. As usual, in both Parts, the comments section is where it’s at.

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New AI Tools for Research

Google announced Scholar Labs this week. The tool uses generative AI to answer detailed scholarly research questions. The announcement describes Scholar Labs as an “advanced research tool, helping you tackle questions that require looking at a subject from multiple angles.” The search tool locates papers that answer the research question, also providing supplemental information about how each paper answers the question. So far, the tool is available for logged-in users and only in English. Also announced this week is LeapSpace from Elsevier. Described as an “AI-assisted workspace to accelerate research and discovery”, LeapSpace combines agentic and generative AI, reasoning engines, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to support a variety of research workflows in a single platform.

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The OA Deals Keep Coming

First up, Taylor & Francis and the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) have entered an OA agreement. Starting in January, the deal will allow authors at participating Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand universities to publish in T&F’s hybrid and gold journals with a waived article processing charge (APC). Second, the American Physical Society will launch PRX Intelligence, a “highly selective open access journal that will welcome manuscripts on AI and machine learning methods and their application to advance scientific understanding.” Submissions will open in February 2026. Third, thanks to a $206,886 grant from the Gates Foundation, Lyrasis, Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Center for Library Programs, and the California Digital Library will kick off Mapping U.S. Diamond Open Access Journals, “the first national mapping of Diamond Open Access (OA) publishing in the United States.” The project aims to highlight challenges in the market and offer “actionable recommendations in support of sustainable, non-commercial scholarly publishing.” Last but not least, IGI Global Scientific Publishing and Mississippi State University signed an OA deal, allowing Mississippi faculty to publish in the IGI Global Scientific Publishing’s Open Access Journal Program with a discounted APC.

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Let’s Talk Research: The Research Office and the SDGs

A new report from Springer Nature and Overton “investigates how academic research is influencing real-world policy tied to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” Among the findings, the report revealed that “SDG policy documents seem to cite more research than non-SDG policy,” indicating a “connection between science and action” on these issues. The study also looked at open access article citations, publication models, and the geographies of research cited in SDG policy. Next, Clarivate’s Research Professional News released a report on academic research offices, highlighting political, financial, and societal challenges. Evaluating responses from more than 2,500 research office staff and researchers, the survey highlights communication issues between scholars and the offices, AI driving noteworthy change, and debate over measuring the societal impact of research. Research Professional News also conducted the report in 2023, allowing for interesting (and surprising!) developments in the past two years.

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Book Awards and UPF Celebrates Oak Anniversary with New Website

The National Book Foundation hosted the 76th National Book Awards this week in New York. The winners of the five categories (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature) were selected from almost 2,000 submissions. Publishing Perspectives has the coverage. More big news for book awards arrived when the American Library Association unveiled the 2026 Carnegie Medals shortlist, which includes six finalists in fiction and nonfiction. Finally, congratulations to the University Press of Florida for relaunching its website (we all know how difficult those projects are). Arriving in the press’s 80th anniversary year, new features include enhanced browsing capabilities, an upgraded shopping cart and checkout experience, and, for the first time, the ability to purchase ebooks.

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It’s Already Time for End of the Year Book Lists?!

To assist with your holiday shopping, several outlets have released their “best books” lists, starting with Barnes & Noble. B&N offers a central hub of lists broken down by genre, and I’ll highlight a few of the nonfiction picks here, including biographies & memoirs, history, sports, and science & technology. Moving right along, Book Riot shared its Best Books of 2025, which includes helpful tags like nonfiction, horror, poetry, and more. Last, the Washington Post released “50 notable works of nonfiction from 2025.” Two university presses made the list. Can you guess which ones? (Yes, I scrolled through the entire list to find university press titles. You’re welcome.)

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