1. ABA Added Over 500 New Members in 2025
ABA CEO Allison Hill’s annual letter confirmed membership grew 19% in 2025, rising to 3,417 members (up 554 from the prior year) operating at 3,783 locations — a 151% increase over six years. Hill noted that the majority of stores also reported year-over-year sales increases for 2025 over 2024. Publishers Lunch. ABA
2. Wiley AI Licensing Revenue: Nearly $100M in Two Calendar Years
Wiley’s Q1 FY2026 results (ended July 31, 2025) showed Research revenue up 5% at constant currency, driven by AI licensing revenue of $16M versus just $1M in the prior year period, following a landmark AI licensing project with a large tech company and a strategic partnership with Anthropic. (Wiley News Room) Wiley’s Q2 FY2026 earnings call confirmed AI training revenue had reached close to $100M in less than two years — with $6M in Q2 and $35M year-to-date, nearing the prior year’s $40M total — with active pipeline discussions with AWS, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Mistral AI.
3. University of Chicago Press Workers Announce Plan to Unionize
A supermajority of the 139 eligible workers at UCP signed union authorization cards and announced the UCP Workers Guild, affiliating with the Chicago News Guild (TNG-CWA Local 34071) — which would be the first union in the press’s 130-year history. (PW), (CST) Grievances cited include low wages, heavy workloads, lack of managerial transparency, and concerns over AI and potential layoffs.Publishers Weekly+1 Workers asked for voluntary recognition by a Friday deadline; if declined, they planned to pursue an NLRB mail election. The press’s director acknowledged receipt of the announcement without further comment. Chicago Maroon
4. AI Flooding Academic Publishing — Continued Coverage
A study published by Organization Science’s AI Task Force, analyzing 6,957 submissions and 10,389 reviews from January 2021 through February 2026, found that submissions to the journal surged 42% following ChatGPT’s launch — with editors attributing nearly all of the increase to AI use. By early 2026, a majority of manuscripts showed AI involvement, while Flesch Reading Ease scores declined and AI-assisted papers carried higher rejection rates. (Phys.org) More than 30% of expert peer reviews now show detectable AI use, and editors report those reviews are “essentially uninformative.” (The Brighter Side of News)
5. EU AI Act Article 53 Full Enforcement — August 2026
The EU AI Act’s enforcement timeline reaches its most consequential milestone on August 2, 2026, when high-risk AI system obligations and GPAI enforcement powers — including fines up to €15M or 3% of global annual turnover for non-compliance — activate. (coronium.io) GPAI providers must publish a mandatory Commission-template training-data summary and respect EU copyright opt-out signals. A May 2026 legislative simplification agreement may adjust some high-risk timelines, but the August date remains operative until any amendment is enacted into law. (legiscope.com)
6. Wiley Announce Acquisition of Emerald Publishing
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in the UK, Emerald is a highly regarded scholarly publisher globally with nearly 500 journal brands, 8,000 book titles, and an extensive archive of case studies and backfile content. The addition of its portfolio strengthens Wiley’s position across multiple disciplines, notably economics, business, finance, accounting, management, strategy, education, engineering, information and knowledge management, operations, public policy and environmental management. (Wiley News)