News: Academic Publishing Weekly

The IMLS vs. the Trump administration, the current state of library-publisher relationships, and a push for open data

Posted on April 10, 2026 in News

The IMLS Is Safe for Now, But 2027 Fed Budget Signals New Battle

If a boxing round lasted a year, the IMLS is finally back in the corner catching its breath before the next one. The embattled agency has made a comeback of late as the Trump Administration withdrew its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that halted its attempt to shut down the IMLS. Days later, the ALA and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) won their lawsuit preventing the mass layoff of IMLS workers that arose from the same executive action. “When the administration began shuttering IMLS last year, it set off a chain reaction,” says ALA President Sam Helmick in a statement. “Libraries across the country started cutting hours, staff and services people rely on—after school programs, support for jobseekers and connection for older adults. This settlement protects life-changing library services for communities across the country. ALA will continue to defend every American’s freedom to read and learn.” However, the White House has just released its proposed budget for fiscal 2027 and it effectively eliminates funding for the IMLS and the Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) program. Nevertheless, the ALA and its allies have had a game plan in place since the President’s first term and they’re ready to continue the fight. Library Journal has a good wrap-up of the last year. Go here for ALA’s announcement on the withdrawal of the appeal and here for the ALA and AFSCME victory.

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OA Moves

In OA news, Taylor & Francis has signed a deal in India with ICFAI Group subsidiary, the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE). It’s IFHE’s first open access deal with a publisher, reports Research Information, and it enables researchers to publish OA in more than 2,400 journals across T&F and Routledge portfolios. Relatedly, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) announced it met its sustainability goal for its Subscribe to Open model for the 2026 subscription year. The Society’s six journals will continue on as OA, allowing authors at any institution, regardless of subscription status, to publish OA.

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Dissecting the Library and Publisher Relationship

Ithaka S+R has released an Issue Brief that examines how research libraries are approaching their relationships with academic publishers in an era of budgetary, social, and political headwinds. A survey conducted in second half of 2025 reveals, among other issues, that ROI and robust metrics supporting it, are core concerns. Likewise, accessibility, budget constraints, and library and institutional alignment are key elements in evaluating contracts.

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Supporting Open Research and Open Data

F1000 and the Science for Africa Foundation announced an expansion of the eligibility requirements for its publishing platform Open Research Africa (ORA). The move allows submissions from Africa-based authors “regardless of their funder,” as opposed to restricting publication to authors supported by ORA’s partner funders. After rejecting 60 percent of submissions to ORA in 2024 due to the eligibility requirements, F1000 and the Science for Africa Foundation welcome the opportunity to “[introduce] an exciting additional publishing option for African researchers, especially those who want to realize the impact benefits of open research.” In response to the growing demand for open data, IOP Publishing released a free open data training course aimed at early career researchers. The course offers “clear, hands‑on guidance” on how to make data available and “demonstrates how strong data practices can enhance the visibility, credibility and impact of researchers’ work.” The course follows a 2024 IOP Publishing study on data sharing practices that revealed persistent challenges in open data workflows, despite authors’ support for the practice.

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ResearchGate and AIPP, DataSeer and AAAS Continue Partnerships

ResearchGate and AIP Publishing will continue their Journal Home partnership, in addition to activating ResearchGate enhancements. Said enhancements include the Community Engagement Upgrade (CEU) and the Open Access Agreement Upgrade (OAAU), which connects researchers to content that aids their communities and assists with finding funding opportunities, respectively. In other partnership news, DataSeer and the publisher of the Science journals, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), will extend their partnership with a six-month pilot. The pilot will apply DataSeer’s AI technology to Science’s MDAR (Materials, Design, Analysis, and Reporting) checklists for manuscripts. Testing how the technology “can reduce manual effort while maintaining alignment with Science’s editorial requirements,” the pilot will also provide insights into AI’s ability to contribute to scientific publishing workflows and standards.

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Unfortunately, the US Is Still Obsessed with Banning Books

In book banning news, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that S.F. 496 can go into effect, a 2023 Iowa state law that “bans all books and materials with depictions of sex, written or visual, from school libraries, and makes librarians and educators legally liable for any alleged noncompliance.” The law also prohibits educators from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in grades Kindergarten-sixth grade and forces school officials to notify parents if a child uses a different name or pronoun. The law has already faced a long legal battle since signed into law in May 2023, including two legal challenges. The case will now return to the lower district court for a third hearing, though the law will go into effect in the meantime, “which likely means the widespread removal of books from school library shelves across Iowa.” And we wonder why the US has a literacy crisis…

Independent Press Top 5 Bestsellers: Nonfiction
The American Booksellers Association and the Independent Publishers Caucus recently collaborated on an independent bestsellers list, which includes books from independent presses and sold in indie bookshops. Below are the top five nonfiction titles this week. Find this week’s full list of fiction and nonfiction independent bestsellers.

1. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
3. The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
4. The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary by Terry Tempest Williams (Grove Press)
5. Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team by A.M. Gittlitz (Astra House)

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