Update on ERIC (EBSCO) 29 April 2025

Yesterday, we received the following message:

“I am pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Education, on behalf of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), has renewed its contract with AEM Corporation to continue the work of ERIC. The largest library of education research in the world, ERIC serves more than 14 million users annually.

As we begin this new phase of work, we do so with a more refined scope. We want to assure you that no content has been removed or deleted from ERIC. The refined scope does include cost efficiencies, such as closing our helpdesk and exploring new models for meeting community member needs. As we do so, you can find materials for users on our website, including answers to the most frequently asked questions about ERIC. Going forward, we will also consolidate our social media presence under the larger IES banner. Please follow us at @IESResearch!

Throughout this change, we remain committed to ensuring the integrity of our collection. Our preservation policy is unchanged: we will not remove an article in ERIC unless it is retracted by the publisher. We are dedicated to sharing knowledge about the condition of education and “what works” to improve student achievement for the public, educators and education scientists, and policymakers, both now and into the future.”

This is good news, as the current data will still be available. But they are also continuing with a more refined scope. What that means is not clear yet, especially when it comes to coverage of topics and/or journals. If there is more news, we will inform you further.

If you are searching for literature on educational technology and e-learning, the library also offers a database called LearnTechLib. This is an online resource of peer-reviewed and published international journal articles and conference papers on the latest research, developments and applications related to these topics.

In case you have questions about these developments in relation to your research (whether it is literature search, publishing, specific databases or otherwise), you can contact us via Ask Your Librarian.

Update 11 April 2025

Recent developments in the US raised questions on the accessibility of academic information. Fundings are being cut and topics/terms are being banned. Especially when it comes to topics/terms like injustice, immigrants, health equity and gender. For a list of banned words, see this overview from PEN America.
The Scholarly Kitchen published an article on these issues, including a Declaration to defend research against US Government censorship. 

As a library we are concerned about these developments, as access to information is our core business and finding information is essential for academics and society as a whole. UM scientific information specialists together with information specialists of other Dutch universities, are keeping a close eye on these developments. Forbidden words are frequently searched to determine if they are still present in the controlled vocabulary and if certain ‘controversial’ articles can still be found in these databases. 

Via this page we will keep you updated on the developments. In case you have questions about these developments in relation to your research (whether it is literature search, publishing, specific databases or otherwise), you can contact us via Ask Your Librarian. 

ERIC (EBSCO)

(database of indexed and full-text education literature and resources) 

In March 2025, the ERIC helpdesk send the following message:
“The Department of Education is working with the Department of Government Efficiency to “reduce overall Federal spending” and “reallocate spending to promote efficiency” (EO 14222). As a result, the number of records added to the ERIC collection will be significantly reduced going forward. The number of actively cataloged sources will be reduced by approximately 45% starting April 24, 2025. Subject matter was not considered during the process to identify which sources would be made inactive. Please note that all records currently in ERIC will remain available.”
Here you will find a (unofficial) crowd-sourced Google doc with information on journals that will not be indexed any more. It also contains mail correspondence from the helpdesk to publishers. 

PubMed

Currently, there have been concerns about the possible loss of publications in the Pubmed database with the advice to switch to the European equivalent of Pubmed; Europe PMC. However, we as the library do not see the need for this yet. The post that sparked this discussion is based on a comparison of the two databases with the search “transgender AND sexual health”, which seems to result in more hits in Europe PMC. Nevertheless, this is not due to political interference, but due to the differences in search methods of both databases. Pubmed was searched in the title/abstract only while Europe PMC searched through the full text. Moreover, Europe PMC indexes more publication than Pubmed or Medline(Ovid), which explains the differences in amount of hits.