News: Academic Publishing Weekly

Wiley reaps AI rewards, OA takes a hit in Germany, and AUPresses welcomes new president

Posted on June 18, 2026 in News

AI Helps Drive Growth at Wiley and Clarivate Releases Journal Citation Report

On the heels of its acquisition of Emerald Publishing, Wiley released its fourth quarter and fiscal 2026 financial results. Revenue for the year remained flat at $1.67 billion while operating income jumped 25% to $277 million. Research and AI were the two areas that helped drive performance, with 5% revenue growth in research, and AI initiatives brought in another $49 million. According to the company, lifetime AI revenue now stands at more than $110 million with, according to their announcement, “recurring revenue rapidly scaling.” 

The 2026 edition of Clarivate’s Journal Citation Report is out. It includes metrics for 22,643 journals across 254 categories. According to the report, the United States and China still have the most author affiliations, accounting for 48% among the represented countries and regions. The Global South representation continues to increase and, no surprise, China (23%) and India (12%) have the largest growth in author representation. Access the reports.

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Responsible AI in the News

Clever product name alert: MDPI recently announced it has fully launched Ethicality, its in-house, AI-powered research integrity system. The OA publisher is now using it to screen all of the manuscripts that come through, amounting to about 2,000 submissions from authors each day. MDPI describes Ethicality as an “integrated, end-to-end integrity layer embedded within the editorial workflow, continuously monitoring manuscripts rather than operating as a one-off screening tool.” It checks for issues such as paper mill activity, AI-generated text, citation manipulation, fake references, and others. Peer review reports are also scanned.

The Alliance for Responsible Innovation in the Arts and Media (ARIAM) now counts Cambridge University Press & Assessment as one of its newest members. ARIAM is an international coalition “dedicated to ensuring that AI is developed and deployed in a way that benefits society, rather than undermines it.” And Cambridge is in the company of some heavy hitters. Other recent coalition members include The Walt Disney Company, BBC, ITV, The New York Times, Condé Nast, Adobe, and Wiley, with more on the way. A key initiative for the coalition is to help the creative industry move from a reactive stance to one where AI “accountability, transparency, and safety are built in from the beginning.”

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A Bad Day for OA (in Germany)

A group of academics in Germany recently won a lawsuit against a requirement to deposit manuscripts imposed by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The academics alleged that the deposit requirement infringed on their rights of free expression and academic freedom. The Court agreed. Of course, The Scholarly Kitchen has the story.

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The Curious Case of the AI Librarian

Adrienne Lu of The Chronicle of Higher Education dives into a new role in higher education: the Artificial Intelligence Librarian. Expanding on information literacy tasks already familiar to academic librarians, the AI librarian focuses on AI-related responsibilities like AI literacy, citation, policy, and tools. Lu explains that the position follows the trend of creating new roles in the profession in response to changing needs, such as the liaison librarian or, more recently, the UX librarian and student success librarian. Pulling in data points from Ithaka S+R’s recent US Library Report, Lu underscores administrators’ growing interest in hiring roles related to AI. Lu also spotlights recent AI library roles in higher ed, the trend of academic librarians gaining AI skills overall, and how AI roles in the library interact with other offices on campus.

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More Manuscript Screening Tools

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) announced that Reports by Enago has now screened 10,000 manuscripts submitted to the publisher. The collaboration between the two organizations began in March, with Reports by Enago checking manuscripts for compliance with journal requirements like references and figures and tables. Jane Hordern, RSC Journals Customer Services Manager, stated, “Reports has helped streamline the submission process for everyone involved and has already become a valuable addition to our resources for supporting our incredible community of authors.” Speaking of screening tools, Digital Science released a self-citation tool, Dimensions Citation Check. The tool analyzes manuscripts for cases of self-citation, “provid[ing] editors with a risk rating intended to support editorial decision-making.” Part of the tech company’s research integrity portfolio, the tool can integrate into “existing manuscript submission systems via API and supports batch processing, making it suitable for publishers handling large submission volumes.”

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New Infringement Suit and Announcements from AUPresses

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced an infringement lawsuit against the alleged pirated book site WeLib. Hosting more than 40 million books and 95 million papers, the site brings in over 80,000 monthly users, according to the suit’s complaint. The suit brings together the five major publishers—Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and ​Simon & Schuster—with 13 publishing companies total, including Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley. Next, the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) held its Annual Meeting this week, making two announcements. The association awarded Chief Transformation Officer of Johns Hopkins University Press Wendy Queen with the Constituency Award in honor of her contributions to the university press community. In addition, AUPresses welcomed its new president, Stephanie Williams. With nearly 30 years of publishing and bookselling experience, Williams currently acts as director of Wayne State University Press. With this appointment she becomes the “Association’s first African American President and the second woman of color elected to this role.”

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 Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris (W. W. Norton & Company)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
3. A Resistance History of the United States by Tad Stoermer (Steerforth)
4. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
5. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Company)

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