News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Book bans continue to rise, Jisc's "Open Policy Finder," and Scopus celebrates its 20th anniversary

Posted on November 8, 2024 in News

PEN America Tracks the Continual Rise of Book Bans

A new report from PEN America reveals that there has been a 200 percent increase in book bans when comparing the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. The report tracked attempts to ban more than 4,000 unique titles, with the highest numbers seen in Florida and Iowa. As reported in September as part of Banned Books Week, the latest school year saw over 10,000 book bans. PEN America further underscored that nearly 16,000 book bans have been reported since the Banned in America report series commenced in 2021. The majority of targeted titles involve LGBTQ+ themes, characters of color, and deal with topics “including experiences with substance abuse, suicide, depression and mental health concerns, and sexual violence.” Soft censorship is also on the rise, which includes self-censoring titles. Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, underlined that, “This crisis is tragic for young people hungry to understand the world they live in and to see their identities and experiences reflected in books.” [Publishing Perspectives]

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JSTOR Expands Interactive Research Tool Beta Program and Assessing AI in Peer Review

After launching a beta program for its AI interactive research tool in August 2023, JSTOR is inviting 500 colleges and universities to gain early access. As explained by Beth LaPensee, principal product manager at ITHAKA, “Putting the tool in the hands of entire campus communities will offer insights about how usage might scale, how the tool meets teaching and research needs in diverse fields of study, and where further refinements are needed.” JSTOR underlined that more than 35,000 users signed up for the initial beta program and found the AI tool useful for their research. Next up, associate professor James Zou considered the use of AI in peer review, highlighting a study conducted with colleagues at Stanford University. Of note, the study postulated that “7-17% of the sentences in the [peer] reviews” of roughly 50,000 computer-science articles were written by AI. Zou mentioned that time constraints can lead peer reviewers to turn to AI, stressing that guardrails must be employed when using the technology. Zou further emphasized the importance of human oversight and transparency, also noting that it is “crucial and urgent that the scientific community establishes norms about how to use these models responsibly in the academic peer-review process.”

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Jisc Unveils “Open Policy Finder” and Sage Names a Chief Commercial Officer

Education and research not-for-profit Jisc has consolidated Sherpa services under a new platform called Open Policy Finder. Sherpa services, composed of Sherpa Fact, Sherpa Romeo, and Sherpa Juliet, are a set of online tools that aim to inform researchers’ decisions to publish open access. Through Open Policy Finder, authors will be able to view funder and publisher OA conditions and journals’ compliance with funder policies under a single platform. Liz Bal, director of product – research management at Jisc, commented, “Sherpa services are a vital part of the administration of open research, and we’re delighted to launch this new, combined platform to make it even easier for users worldwide to access the information they need and make informed choices quickly and confidently.” In other news, Khal Rudin will take on the role of Chief Commercial Officer at Sage in January. In the new position, Rudin will manage the “sales and marketing for Sage’s global journals and library divisions, as well as its college (books) division outside of the US.” Rudin is former managing director at AM and a current senior vice president at Sage.

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Scopus Turns 20

Elsevier is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its abstract and citation database, Scopus. Elsevier reflected on the platform’s growth, expressing gratitude to the research community. Highlighting Scopus’s audience of academics in more than 170 countries, Elsevier underscored the database’s efforts to advance collaboration and improve user experience by leveraging new technology. Elsevier also pointed to Scopus’s “powerful tools for citation analysis, author profiling, and trend identification to facilitate data-driven decision-making.” Going forward, the company reiterated its commitment to “advancing research excellence and supporting the global academic community in achieving new milestones of discovery and innovation.” [Scopus Blog]

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Princeton University Press Announces New Online Storefront and University of Georgia Press Distribution Changes

Princeton University Press (PUP) has opened an online bookstore in mainland China. The storefront includes “nearly 1,000 English-language titles from the publisher’s catalog, with plans to expand the offering to its entire catalog in the future.” The storefront complements PUP’s Beijing office, opened in 2017, and is operated in collaboration with China National Publications Import and Export Corporation (CNPIEC). PUP shared that it has sold hundreds of titles thus far. Next up, Liverpool University Press (LUP) will be taking over distribution for the University of Georgia Press (UGAP). Similar to the University of Michigan Press, UGAP’s distribution will fall under Liverpool Distribution Services and LUP will be an “exclusive distribution partner for the UK and Europe.”  

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