Member News & Announcements, October IO 2025
Awards & Honorable Mentions
American Libraries Recognizes 15 Libraries in the 2025 Library Design Showcase
St. Louis County (Mo.) Library, Clark Family branch and Houston Public Library, LSA Consortia Members (Amigos), Press Release, September 2, 2025
Fifteen new and renovated libraries feature in American Libraries’ 2025 Library Design Showcase. The showcase appears in the magazine’s September/October issue, available online today.
The 37th annual showcase highlights innovative constructions and remodels across the US and Canada that address patrons’ evolving needs. This year’s selections were completed between May 1, 2024, and April 30, 2025.
The public, university, and high school libraries represent a range of geographies, styles, and budgets, from $200 to multimillion-dollar ventures. Many also represent feats in sustainability, including creative reuse of buildings, including a former post office and a pizza parlor.
Open Access, Open Research
ExLibris Announces Whitepapers Hub
ExLibris/Clarivate Analytics, Voting Member, Press Release, September 9, 2025
Ex Libris is pleased to announce the launch of a new Whitepapers Hub — a dynamic destination for academic and research library professionals seeking fresh insights, practical strategies, and forward-thinking perspectives.
This newly unveiled page brings together a curated selection of open-access and registration-required whitepapers that explore the evolving role of libraries in Academic AI, student success, technology adoption, and user experience transformation. The collection is designed to help librarians, faculty, and institutional leaders understand emerging trends and apply them with confidence.
UTSA Libraries Guide Researchers through Federal Open Access Mandates
University of Texas, San Antonio, LSA Consortia Member (Amigos), News Announcement, August 28, 2025
UTSA Libraries staff are working to help researchers comply with a new requirement for publishing federally funded research.
By the end of this year, UTSA faculty and graduate students must make the results of their federally funded research publicly available immediately upon publication, ending the longstanding 12-month embargo period.
The change was announced by federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Education, and created a new sense of urgency for researchers to understand the requirements. Failure to comply could jeopardize future funding.
Partnerships & Collaborations
Aries Systems and Signals Partner to Strengthen the Efficiency and Accuracy of Research Integrity Checks
Aries Systems, Voting Member, Press Release, September 3, 2025
Aries Systems Corporation, a leading provider of workflow management technologies for the scholarly publishing community, and Research Signals Limited (Signals), a research integrity solutions provider, are pleased to announce their partnership to empower journals to identify and prevent the publication of problematic manuscripts to restore trust in research.
As overburdened editorial offices face rising research fraud with the increasing volume of incoming submissions, it is challenging to consistently execute the time- and skill-intensive manual screening required to catch problematic manuscripts and avoid expensive bottlenecks and retractions. To streamline this process and safeguard against these threats, Aries Systems and Research Signals Limited have partnered to integrate Signals Manuscript Checks, a research integrity evaluation tool, with Editorial Manager® (EM), the leading manuscript submission and peer review tracking system.
New Products and Innovations
CAS Introduces CAS IPFinder for Improved Intellectual Property Search
CAS/American Chemical Society, Voting Member, Press Release, September 9, 2025
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific knowledge management, announces the introduction of CAS IP Finder, powered by STN™. This new intellectual property search solution expands on the trusted foundation of CAS STNext®, the premier scientific IP information platform for expert-level precision search across scientific and patent databases. CAS STNext supports intellectual property professionals with advanced capabilities, connecting users to a comprehensive collection of global databases, scientist-curated content, and patent information with precision search and analysis tools.
CAS IP FinderTM introduces AI-enhanced features and expanded content to make precision search more accessible across broader teams. The solution launches in fall 2025, with additional capabilities to follow. Developed to support evolving organizational search needs in intellectual property, CAS IP Finder enables organizations to uncover insights faster, reduce risk, and make confident decisions.
JAMA Network Launches JAMA+ Women’s Health
American Medical Association, Voting Member, Press Release, September 5, 2025
The JAMA Network announces the launch of JAMA+ Women’s Health, a new digital resource designed to elevate the visibility and accessibility of trusted, peer-reviewed content that advances health care for women across the globe.
Recognizing that women’s health is more comprehensive than reproductive care, gynecologic and breast cancer, and menopause, JAMA+ Women’s Health will showcase rigorous studies that include or focus exclusively on women from across JAMA and the 12 JAMA Network journals.
Industry Leadership
OCLC Leaders Council Elects Keith Webster to Board of Trustees
OCLC (Voting Member) and Carnegie-Mellon University, LSA Member (PALCI), Press Release, September 25, 2025
The OCLC Leaders Council has elected Keith Webster, Helen and Henry Posner, Jr. Dean of the University Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University, to the OCLC Board of Trustees.
Webster was appointed Dean of University Libraries at Carnegie Mellon in July 2013 and two years later to the additional role of Director of Emerging and Integrative Media Initiatives. In 2021, his deanship was endowed by the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh, making him the inaugural Helen and Henry Posner, Jr. Dean.
Platforms & Infrastructure
LibLicense-L to Join the Charleston Hub
Annual Reviews, Voting Member, Press Release, September 20, 2025
Charleston Hub is pleased to announce that, effective today, Liblicense-l, a long-running, distinguished mail group and archive in the library and scholarly communications space, will be joining its family of resources. For nearly 30 years, Liblicense-l has connected libraries, publishers, academics, and many other members of the information community with announcements and discussion about fundamental issues in the evolving digital landscape of scholarly communication.
Liblicense-l will be live on its new platform on September 22, 2025, following a brief publishing hiatus. Current subscribers will be seamlessly migrated, and list management instructions will be made widely available. As part of this process, the Liblicense-l mail archive and the long-standing companion website will be refreshed under the Charleston Hub, with details to be announced.