How is artificial intelligence transforming the way researchers discover and engage with scholarly content? This session explores the impact of AI-powered tools on discovery and usage through the lens of JSTOR’s 18-month pilot of an interactive research tool. Attendees will gain insights from key data and real-world applications that demonstrate how AI-enabled tools have impacted content discoverability user engagement, and addressed persistent challenges in scholarly publishing and academic libraries.

Open Access monograph initiatives in the humanities and social sciences have shown great promise, demonstrating significant usage around the world. At the same time, creating a scalable funding model that prioritizes equity and bibliodiversity remains a formidable challenge. A group of university press directors, academic librarians, and not-for-profit partners have worked together on an initiative to produce a large-scale shift in monograph publishing. In a proposed new model, libraries could license new university press ebooks at an affordable cost; three years after publication, each title would be released openly to the world, increasing equity of access to valuable scholarly content. Our shared goal: a sustainable and equitable Open Access model that will meet the needs of authors, readers, libraries, and university presses. In this session, the presenter will share their perspectives on the Open Access landscape and lead a conversation eliciting feedback on the challenges and opportunities of this new model.