Library vendors have announced several new products, partnerships, and programs during the past two months. Here’s a sampling of recent news.

OverDrive and Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced an integration that will enable users of the Alma library services platform and Primo discovery service to seamlessly discover OverDrive ebooks and e-audiobooks. OverDrive will send a regular feed of MARC records to Ex Libris, updating the catalog with ebook and e-audiobook titles currently owned by mutual customers, according to an announcement. Enabling the discovery of films and television shows available via Kanopy is also being explored for the future.

Separately, OverDrive has launched Heights Press, its own boutique publishing imprint “inspired by the vibrant creativity and community spirit of Cleveland Heights, Ohio,” according to an announcement. The press debuted with “Hickory Hollow,” a six-book series for middle-grade readers, which is exclusively available to patrons of public libraries and students in schools using the Libby and Sora apps. In addition, a series of six “Hickory Hollow” animated video shorts are now available on Kanopy Kids on the vendor’s Kanopy streaming platform. Each ebook in the series is initially available in English, Chinese, German, Vietnamese, and Korean, and the first title is available for free to OverDrive schools and libraries as part of the “Everyone Reads: Kids and Teens Collection.” Additional titles are available on OverDrive Marketplace. “I grew up in Cleveland Heights and I am a proud graduate of Cleveland Heights High School," Steve Potash, CEO and founder of OverDrive, said in an announcement. "We are committed to promoting literacy and inspiring all students to spend more time reading. With Heights Press we are utilizing our 20+ years of serving libraries and schools with original content for young readers during the critical years of their development where the right story can ignite a lifelong passion for books."

And ProQuest parent company Clarivate last month launched ProQuest One Sustainability, a new transdisciplinary research solution designed to meet demand for sustainability curricula in academic institutions. “Developed in collaboration with curriculum experts, faculty, students, and librarians, ProQuest One Sustainability includes over 1,500 scholarly journals, more than 40,000 full-text case studies, unique content from over 37,000 dissertations and theses, as well as reports, trade journals, ebooks and magazines,” according to an announcement. ProQuest One Sustainability also features the new artificial intelligence (AI)–powered ProQuest Research Assistant, designed to help users craft targeted searches and more effectively analyze documents and explore new research ideas.

In November, a coalition of universities, community colleges, and cybersecurity organizations launched the Strengthen Workforce Education for Excellence in Programming Securely (SWEEPS) program, a new educational initiative aimed at improving software security in the United States. Funded by a grant from the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C), SWEEPS will offer online training for students and professionals at all stages of their careers, including one-day workshops, self-paced courses, weeklong intensive bootcamps, and full certificate programs, according to an announcement. Participants who are accepted to the program will receive full scholarships from the NCAE-C grant to cover enrollment costs in courses that will cover key concepts and principles of secure programming, including common security misconceptions and proactive security practices; the latest data security standards and how to reduce security vulnerabilities; compliance and legal requirements in secure programming and cybersecurity; and advanced security topics, including hands-on analysis of vulnerabilities, exploits, and defense mechanisms. The SWEEPS curriculum was developed by experts at the University of California, Davis; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA; California Polytechnic State University–San Luis Obispo; Cosumnes River College, CA; DARK Enterprises, Inc.; and StrongAuth, Inc. Additional information is available here.

JSTOR, a nonprofit service of ITHAKA, has expanded the beta program for its interactive AI-powered research assistant, offering 500 colleges and universities early access for their faculty and students. Previously the AI assistant, which was first released in August 2023, had been available exclusively to individuals who signed up to test it. Designed to support both novice and advanced researchers as well as educators, the tool generates summaries to help users assess whether journal articles, book chapters, and research reports are relevant to their research, and enables them to ask questions about content using conversational language and easily find similar works. “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,” Beth LaPensee, principal product manager at ITHAKA, said in an announcement.

EBSCO recently launched Mosaic by GOBI Library Solutions. Designed in partnership with more than 30 libraries, consortia, and publisher/aggregator supplier partners from around the world, the new book ordering platform draws on the strengths of GOBI and EBSCOhost Collection Manager to streamline the book acquisition process. Mosaic enables discovery and firm order workflow for title-by-title ebooks from EBSCO eBooks, IGI Global, JSTOR, and Taylor & Francis, and includes instant order acknowledgments, rapid fulfillment, and fulfillment confirmations and proxied access URLs directly via email. “Additionally, Mosaic provides simplified order history and invoicing, allowing librarians to track order status, review purchasing history and avoid duplicate orders all in a single, centralized location. Librarians can also download basic cataloging records via rapid MARC record delivery, ensuring new acquisitions are quickly and easily discoverable to patrons. Mosaic will continue to evolve, with additional features and functionality to be added based on user-informed feedback,” according to an EBSCO announcement.

EdTech vendor Springshare has acquired CareerShift, a software platform designed to help students with job searches, as well as career and company research. “The CareerShift platform is an incredibly helpful and valuable tool for job seekers and is already used at hundreds of college and university career services offices,” Slaven Zivkovic, founder and CEO of Springshare, said in an announcement. “The platform also holds great potential with our public libraries—vibrant community hubs—to assist librarians as they seek to help patrons with career and company research.” According to the announcement, Springshare will provide investment, resources, and assistance to grow the CareerShift platform as it operates as an independent brand under Springshare’s corporate umbrella.

Software solution and services company Éclat Engineering has launched an integrated AI service for Open Access (OA) content on its MyLOFT platform. MyLOFT is designed to streamline access to library subscribed e-resources and web articles, and help users organize this content and access it across multiple devices. The new integrated AI service, which is currently in beta testing, is powered by AICurate, and offers advanced content recommendations and search capabilities for OA content within the MyLOFT platform.

D-Tech International has launched a height-adjustable update to its library self-service kiosks. The serveIT S-PIRE kiosk is controlled via the kiosk’s touch screen, ensuring comfortable access for users of all heights, according to an announcement. “The decision to introduce a height-adjustable feature to our serveIT S-PIRE was driven by our commitment to user accessibility,” Marvin Crisp, founder and owner of D-Tech International, said in an announcement. “Libraries serve diverse communities, and it is essential for all patrons, regardless of their physical abilities, to have equal access to library resources.”

Equinox Open Library Initiative recently announced the latest release of the CORAL ERM open-source electronic resources management system. “The improvements to the Cost History functionality in 2024.10 allow us to map the relationships between the individual databases we provide students and the bundled packages we pay for,” Michael Kares, electronic resources librarian at Jessup University, CA, who assisted Equinox with testing the new functionality available in the release, said in an announcement. East Carolina University, NC, and SirsiDynix also worked with Equinox developers to complete this latest release.

Members of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and PubWest in November voted to combine the associations, effective July 1, 2025. The new entity will be known as the Independent Book Publishers Association. “We've been talking for years about rebranding, trying to have more of a national presence, trying to change our name, and trying to grow our membership,” PubWest Board President Amy Barrett-Daffin said in an announcement. “The smartest thing to do is to join forces with another organization to have more of a national presence and expand our reach and our offerings.”

Academic publisher Sage has acquired GOOD DOCS LLC, a film distributor that promotes social justice through documentaries. The acquisition adds more than 370 films to Sage’s library of video content. “GOOD DOCS provides a remarkable library of documentary film content to the educational market, which we know instructors, students, and academic librarians value very highly,” Sage Senior Director Michael Carmichael said in an announcement. “In GOOD DOCS, we also have found a key partner that promotes anti-racism, social justice, and equity through its powerful, thought-provoking films, which aligns very closely with the mission of Sage Video too.”

Global content preservation and migration services provider Memnon announced that its archiving services are now listed on the Amazon Web Services Marketplace. “By migrating legacy media to the cloud, we’re not only preserving valuable content for future generations but also making it more accessible and ready to be leveraged,” Memnon CEO Heidi Shakespeare said in an announcement.