News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Hopkins Press and BioOne merge, publishers sue Meta over copyright, and the latest library systems report.

Posted on May 8, 2026 in News

Johns Hopkins Press and BioOne Announce Merger

Johns Hopkins Press (Hopkins Press) and BioOne announced a merger this week. Notably, we get a break from another consolidation of commercial entities. In this case, two scholarly, non-profit, Subscribe to Open, publisher/aggregators join forces to drive scale and long-term sustainability. With the deal, Hopkins Press expands its social science and humanities discipline coverage in Project MUSE with BioOne’s bioscience journals and ebooks. In the announcement, Hopkins Press is careful to note that while the deal realizes operating efficiencies and greater scale, BioOne staff will remain in place along with all “current commitments to BioOne’s community of participating publishers and supporting libraries.” Indeed, in an interview on The Scholarly Kitchen about the merger, BioOne CEO Lauren Kane, who will help with the transition until January 2027, notes that “We had a few non-negotiables: guarantees that we sought for the BioOne staff, for our partner publishers, and for preservation of the BioOne brand. The Board and I felt strongly that if we couldn’t protect these core things, the deal shouldn’t happen.” The interview, which also features Hopkins Press’s Barbara Kline Pope and Wendy Queen, Executive Director and Chief Transformation Officer, respectively, goes on to describe the merger complexities of navigating governance approvals and, as interviewer Alice Meadows puts it, the BioOne Board “voting for their own dissolution.”   

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More People Moves, Deals, and Financials

EBSCO has officially named Allen Powell as CEO. His appointment comes after serving as interim CEO, which followed the departure of Annie Callanan in 2025 after a short tenure. Powell has held several leadership positions at the company, including Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

After agreeing to acquire cloud-based healthcare content provider Mytonomy in March, Elsevier has announced it has completed the deal and will integrate the service into its Clinical Solutions portfolio. Mytonomy’s video-based “microlearning” content will live alongside Elsevier’s PatientPass, “creating a continuum from clinician decision support to patient education and engagement,” says the announcement.

Sprinter Nature reported its Q1 2026 financials this week, noting that overall revenue increased to €451.4 million compared to same period 2025 revenues of €450.3 million. The company says this was driven by its Research segment, which reported €359.9 million in revenue compared to €354.9 million a year ago. Contributing to that growth, the segment launched 19 new journals and signed 14 more transformative agreements. All told, the company saw adjusted operating profit jump 8 percent.

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AI Tools Hit Metaphorical Shelves

Clarivate has officially launched Web of Science Research Intelligence, an “AI-native research intelligence platform” that informs strategic decision-making at research institutions. Combining Clarivate data with “responsible academic AI,” the platform unifies data across research workflows to help “secure funding, strengthen collaboration, inform strategy and demonstrate real-world impact.” The product was developed in collaboration with the global research community, including “more than 50 development partners and early adopters across 20 countries.”

Research Solutions announced Scite Claude Connector, which integrates Scite’s capabilities into Anthropic’s Claude. Essentially, the Connector allows users to access full-text research without leaving Claude, a clear effort to adapt to researchers’ evolving workflows. The Connector joins Scite’s existing ChatGPT app, therefore “extending Scite’s presence to the two most widely used AI assistants in research.”

After two years as a pilot, IOP Publishing (IOPP) released the Duplicate Review Checker (DRC), which identifies duplicate peer reviews. A “machine-learning powered tool,” the DRC aims to address a growing number of review mills and duplicate review activity, all of which threaten research integrity. The tool is currently integrated into IOPP’s publishing workflows and proprietary journals, and IOPP intends to share the tool’s development with other publishers.

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Publishers Sue Meta and CCC Updates AI Reuse Rights

The Guardian reports that a group of publishers have sued Meta for alleged AI training of pirated materials. The plaintiffs—Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill—accuse Meta of using millions of their textbooks, journal articles, and novels to train its Llama large language models. This suit joins about a gazillion other copyright cases between publishers, authors, creators and AI companies. Meta denied the claims, with a spokesperson stating, “AI is powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have rightly found that training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use.” Excuse me while I roll my eyes. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released a statement in support of the suit (duh) and highlighted excerpts from the Complaint.

In related news, Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) updated its Annual Copyright License for Higher Education (ACLHE) to cover internal-use AI reuse rights. The update allows students, faculty, and researchers to reuse copyrighted material in AI systems in accordance with the institution/library’s subscriptions. President and CEO of CCC Tracey Armstrong said, “We are helping institutions address a growing permissions gap, expand the value of the license across campus, and support responsible AI use, accountability, and governance in teaching, learning, and research.”

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Pulitzer Prizes Announced and University Press Workers Move to Unionize

University of Chicago Press workers have moved to unionize, joining the Chicago News Guild, TNG-CWA Local 34071. Under a union, the workers aim to achieve pay equity, staffing sustainability, and operational transparency to make “the press a more democratic workplace for the benefit of all.” A supermajority has signed their union cards, and the workers will request a mail election if not recognized voluntarily. The move follows last week’s news of Hachette workers starting the unionization process. In addition, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced the 2026 winners. The Pulitzer Prizes include categories like History, Biography, Poetry, and more. There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone took home the General Nonfiction award.

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Reports: Library Systems and Global Research Manipulation

Looking for some light reading over the weekend? Library Technology Guides published the 2026 Library Systems Report, “an in-depth analysis of the global library technology industry.” Penned by Marshall Breeding, this year’s report tracks how libraries have responded to financial challenges and “accelerating disruption driven by artificial intelligence (AI).” Despite the hurdles, Breeding finds that libraries, vendors, and publishers continue to innovate, with particular investment in products that “deliver efficiency and measurable outcomes.” Other key findings trace the increased integration of AI into systems and analytics, in addition to rising industry consolidation. Next, the Forensic Scientometrics (FoSci)—a discipline that investigates research integrity issues—released its first report on the manipulation of global research. Charting individual, organized, and structural problems, the report finds that research integrity issues like paper mills, data manipulation, open science exploitation, and more “are often signals of something far more systemic – and that the self-correcting nature of science cannot compete with the speed at which trust is being eroded.”

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. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
2. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
3. The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
4. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books)
5. Mutual Aid: New and Expanded Edition: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade (Verso)

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