As we reach the midpoint of 2025, the Informit team is proud to share how we’ve been confirming our commitment to preserving, amplifying and delivering trusted Australian knowledge across education, research, and culture.
This year we have been focused on developing deeper relationships with our community and to this end we’ve expanded key partnerships with national leaders like ACER, ATOM, and CAVAL to co-create more inclusive, curriculum-aligned tools and content. Our digitisation program launched with the archival preservation of Arena magazine—Australia’s longest-running independent journal of radical thought and cultural critique—and this marks our renewed focus on safeguarding politically and intellectually significant works. We look forward to making further announcements in this field this year.
Informit Explore, continues to grow—adding new topics, subject areas and thousands of classroom-ready videos to support critical thinking and media literacy in schools and libraries. Our conversations with schools, libraries and users across Australia helps drive our agenda, and I look forward to meeting more of you as we travel around the country at various events and meetings.
We’re also proud to support Indigenous-led research and Knowledges through initiatives like the First Peoples’ Lens Cultural Fund, new interviews with Indigenous Scholars You Should Know, and the upcoming Kummargii Yulendji Symposium.
Behind the scenes, our Production and Platform teams have been hard at work improving metadata, streamlining publishing processes, and enhancing platform accessibility; while our Sales and Customer Success teams continue to strengthen relationships with institutions both in Australia and abroad.
In this newsletter, you’ll find updates from each team, highlights from recent events, and a look ahead at what’s still to come this year. Thank you for being part of the Informit community and for joining us as we continue to champion diverse, verifiable, and locally grounded knowledge.
Warm regards,
Malcolm Neil – Informit Director
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Update from the Product team
Laki Sideris | Head of Product
Informit is reaffirming its role as a careful steward of Australian knowledge—digitising critical archives, deepening partnerships, and supporting community-led access to original, verifiable content.
At the heart of this work is a commitment to collaboration. In 2025, Informit strengthened partnerships with leading national bodies including ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research), ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media), and CAVAL (a not-for-profit consortium serving libraries and the higher education sector). These relationships are helping us deliver tools and programs that respond directly to what educators, researchers, and communities need: diverse, trustworthy, and curriculum-aligned content grounded in Australia’s own cultural and historical context. Informit’s approach has remained guided by values of inclusion, transparency, and Indigenous self-determination, ensuring not just access to knowledge, but a platform that recognises and amplifies the voices and perspectives often left out of mainstream discovery systems.
Digitising Independent Australian Thought
A major development in the first half of 2025 was the launch of a new digitisation program, beginning with the preservation of over 20 years of Arena magazine, Australia’s longest-running independent journal of radical thought and cultural critique. This project exemplifies Informit’s role in safeguarding politically and intellectually significant works that have shaped public discourse but have, until now, remained largely inaccessible in digital form. Watch this space for other archival digitisation programs.
First Peoples’ Lens
Informit continues its Indigenous-led knowledge programs with its Indigenous Scholars You Should Know video series, its First Peoples Lens Cultural Fund, and co-convening with CAVAL, the Kummargii Yulendji Symposium. See below for details on these initiatives.
Informit Explore: Expanding Informit Access to Schools and Libraries
Built in partnership with ACER, Informit’s education focused platform Explore continued to evolve in 2025. Including adding more topics and creating new subject areas. It also welcomed more than 60 Issues in Society titles from The Spinney Press, further supporting classroom research on current Australian social issues. We are also adding more than 100,000 films, documentaries and television programs to the already one million plus television news and current affairs archive. See below for more details and what is coming next.
Sector Thought Leadership: Curriculum Connect and ASLA conferences
At both the Curriculum Connect Symposium and the ASLA 2025 Conference, Informit contributed to discussions around AI, source credibility, and the future of learning. In presentations, we emphasised the importance of empowering students to critically engage with original citable sources rather than rely on algorithmically generated summaries. We also demonstrated solid classroom ready applications of Explore to as a means of embedding evidence based research in the classroom to prepare future critical thinkers. Read more in our blog here.
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Update from the Product: Explore
Jessica Darnell | Product manager
As we reach the midpoint of the school year, Explore continues evolve to support educators with more engaging, curriculum-aligned content. Whether you’re looking to bring First Nations voices into the classroom, help students deepen their media literacy, or enrich your teaching of religion and belief systems, there’s something new coming your way.
Indigenous Studies Across the Curriculum webinar
Explore’s latest professional learning webinar, Indigenous Studies Across the Curriculum, is now available to watch on-demand.
This session features insights from leading researcher and educator Melissa Serrurier and showcases how Informit Explore can be used to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives across subject areas, from English and History to Mathematics and Science. Watch the webinar and access accompanying materials here.
Upcoming webinar: Religion, Culture and the Curriculum
We’re thrilled to announce another upcoming professional learning webinar: Religion, Culture and the Curriculum – Thursday 7 August, 4:30pm AEST.
Presented in partnership with the Australian Council for Education and featuring special guests, this free session will unpack ways to teach religion and belief systems in inclusive, respectful and inquiry-based ways.
Register your interest here
New Religion & Beliefs subject areas coming soon and New Zealand topics now available
We’re expanding our subject coverage to include Religion and Beliefs, with a wide range of topics across cultures and continents that help students explore diverse worldviews, cultural practices and ethical frameworks.
You can also expect to see Science and Education later in the year, with a special topic on ‘Indigenous Education’ already available in our Indigenous Studies subject area.
Additionally, new topics covering New Zealand’s culture and history is now available on Explore, with a particular focus on Māori perspectives and Aotearoa/New Zealand’s cultural history. These rich and accessible texts are written to support cross-curricular engagement with topics including tradition, identity, colonisation, and contemporary belief systems.
Explore Media
In the latter half of the year, Explore Media will be launched as a comprehensive media add-on to Explore, including a rich library of video content that covers film, television and news and current affairs, alongside curated video collections designed specifically for schools on high impact areas such as ‘Australian Cinema’.
Moreover, our flagship collection of Informit Screen Guides – included with Explore Media – offer interactive study guides for classic films on the curriculum, including the likes of Rabbit Proof Fence, The Castle, Ten Canoes and many more.
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First People’s Lens
Kummargii Yulendji Symposium
Informit and CAVAL are thrilled to co-convene Kummargii Yulendji Symposium 2025, an event focusing on how we describe, apply, and amplify First Peoples’ Knowledges and publications.
A highlight of Social Sciences Week, Kummargii Yulendji Symposium offers a forum for the movement and communities that are Indigenising the research, libraries, and publishing sector, presenting many perspectives towards re-visioning colonial structures and systems.
Tuesday 9 September, 9am to 5pm at RMIT University’s Storey Hall
We are excited to share the keynote speakers of this event. Stay tuned for the full program announcement soon.
Dr Rose Barrowcliffe is a Butchulla Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre of Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, a member of the Global Centre for Indigenous Futures, the Indigenous Archives Collective, and an executive member of the Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective.
Tiriki Onus is a Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung artist, academic and filmmaker. Tiriki’s research specialism is in the histories and practices of Indigenous arts in south-eastern Australia. He currently holds the role of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous), as well as being the Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts in Cultural Development, and Co-Director of the Research Unit for Indigenous Arts and Cultures, in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne. Tiriki’s work fosters innovation in research, development, advocacy, representation and inclusion of Indigenous arts and cultural practices and practitioners in the academy.
This is a free, hybrid event, with both in-person and online tickets available. Please register your attendance here.
Registration is essential. Please register by 29 August if you are attending in person. Registrations to attend online will be open until the day of the Symposium.
2025 First Peoples’ Lens Cultural Fund Recipients Announced
Informit announced the recipients of the 2025 First Peoples’ Lens Cultural Fund in early June. The Cultural Fund is dedicated to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander projects in research and innovation, that prioritise digital sharing of knowledge. After a rigorous assessment process, Informit’s First Peoples’ Lens Steering Committee selected the three projects below to support:
- Vicki Couzens, VACL, RMIT Library, Garrwaa online library and Yoonggama Ma Nga First Nations Transdisciplinary Research Cohort ($10,000) – Mapping of research and resources in Gunditjmara language for language revitalisation.
- Tui Raven, Deakin University Library on behalf of Garuwa (Genevieve Grieves) ($10,000) – Facilitation of an Indigenous mentorship program and creation of a First Nations library resource as part of Deakin 50th Anniversary Indigenous Oral History Project.
- Rosie Andrew, Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative ($10,000) – Delivery of ‘Digital Dilly Bag’, including First Nations-led and controlled safe storage of digital data addressing data sovereignty and preservation of Oral Histories.
Thank you to everyone who applied. Informit’s First Peoples’ Lens Steering Committee were impressed with the number and quality of the applications. Informit looks forward to supporting the Cultural Fund recipients to deliver their valuable projects. We will be providing updates on these projects throughout the year and in our end of year newsletter.
New interviews with Indigenous Scholars You Should Know
Melissa Serrurier is an Indigenous curriculum specialist and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Melissa shares her journey from teaching in primary and trauma-informed classrooms to embedding Indigenous perspectives in higher education and advocating for culturally responsive teaching.
Watch Melissa’s interview here
Rebecca Hird is a Garigal/Walkaloa woman through her matrilineal line. She is a Vice Chancellor Indigenous Doctoral Research Fellow at RMIT. Her research focuses on understanding the Social and Emotional Wellbeing of First Nations children and young people who experience detention in Southern Queensland, centering their voices using Indigenous Research Methods and Methodology.
Watch Rebecca’s interview here
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A Busy and Rewarding Start to 2025 for the Sales Team
Amit Pattnaik | Head of Sales
The first half of 2025 has been a dynamic and productive period for the Informit Sales Team, marked by a series of meaningful engagements across the education sector, both at home and abroad.
We kicked off the year with strong representation at several key education conferences. At the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) conference in Geelong, we presented on “Curating Classroom-Ready Content for Critical Thinking,” showcasing how Informit Explore supports teachers and students to develop vital research skills through trusted, authoritative sources. Similarly, at the Australian Christian School Library Network (ACSLN) conference, our team shared insights into how Informit Explore’s topic-based approach aligns learning materials with curriculum outcomes across multiple subjects. These conversations with school librarians highlight how important accessible, Australian-curated content is for students as they prepare for life beyond school.
In June, we were proud to be the Principal Sponsor of the Curriculum Connect Symposium, held at the State Library of Queensland. Our team engaged in rich conversations with delegates about how Informit Explore plays a critical role in combating misinformation in schools. Informit’s Head of Product Laki Sideris also joined a panel discussion focused on how AI is reshaping the information landscape, highlighting Explore’s resource helps schools navigate these complexities. We were pleased to continue the dialogue during our post-conference networking drinks, where we heard first-hand how Australian-produced content is being used as a powerful teaching tool in classrooms.
We continue activity in the higher education space, with strong engagement at the CAUL vendor exhibitions in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Adelaide. It was a pleasure connecting with university library teams across the country, including the newly formed Adelaide University, to better understand the evolving needs of academic institutions. We are currently preparing our 2026 subscription renewal proposal for CAUL libraries and look forward to continued collaboration.
In light of customer renewals and our new product offering, Informit Core, our team spent the first half of the year detailing the increased breadth of content now available across our platform. At any opportunity offered, we showcased Explore’s features to potential and existing customers as a value-add for comprehensive learning.
On the international front, we were thrilled to sign a new sales agreement in June with an international agent who will promote Informit’s databases across North America and Europe. This marks an exciting new chapter for Informit, and we look forward to seeing our unique content reach new global research audiences.
The first half of the year has truly been a period of growth, learning, and connection—and we’re excited about what the rest of 2025 holds.
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Update from the Customer Success team
Brooke Parker | Customer Success Manager
New Invoicing System
We are transitioning to a new invoicing system from July, bringing with it upgrades such as clearer templates, greater options for flexibility and dynamic foreign currency pricing. We encourage your billing contact to reach out should you have any questions or require any customisation.
Refreshed Knowledge Base
Our Knowledge Base has been updated better support the onboarding of new customers, to help separate our articles and help guides into more logical sequence. We’d love your feedback. Take a look here.
Meet the Team
The Customer Success team is a small but effective team that is the engine room for all your subscription needs. Lead by Brooke Parker, with account management provided by Donna Downey and Jess Hunt, the team support new customers throughout the onboarding process, providing training and technical support to maximise value and to help embed our products into your institution.
We would like to introduce our new marketing coordinator Olivia Triglavcanin who joined us back in April. Olivia is originally from Perth, Western Australia and hopes to continue her marketing career in brand storytelling and campaign strategy. Her experience lies in not-for-profits, performing arts organisations and festivals. She is excited to join the Informit team and is excited to be working on all the new and exciting things happening for the rest of the year.
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Update from the Production and Operations team
Brendan Rowan | Head of Production and Operations
Following the launch of Partner Dashboard in the second half of 2024, simplifying the process for our Publishers to deliver new content, the Production team has been focused on data quality and our republishing. This key focus is linked directly to the major and minor release improvements made by our Platform team on search.informit.org.
The Production teams role has been to ensure the enhancements on the Informit platform are realised for new and existing content, as we look to republish and deliver content, discoverability, and other functional improvements for our Publishers and end users.
In addition to our investment in data quality and republishing, the Production team continue to work closely with our Product and Platform team members on curation for Explore, Media prototyping, and other high value initiatives.
The Production team continues to source new Text and Media content, while also exploring new content styling opportunities, digitisation, and other publishing improvements that will deliver value through our Platform.
More specifically, in the first 6 months of 2025 we have:
- Added circa 3,500 recordings for EduTV, and 36k segments and programs for TVNews;
- In terms of new Text issues for existing titles, we’ve added circa 21k article records YTD;
- New content we’ve added 9 new journals, 5 conferences, 3 books (potential for more);
- New journals now include archive content: 10-70 issues each;
- Progress update on large back archives:
- Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (archive to 2002 = 48 issues: completed)
- Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Nature (in progress back to 1913 = 130 issues)
- We’ve improved Text publishing times in PRD by 300%, delivering content faster to you;
- An ongoing key focus is improving the quality of the records and removing duplicates.
It’s been a busy start, we thank you for your support, and hope you enjoy everything on offer at Informit!
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What’s new on EduTV
Paul Stock | Media Curator
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Update from the Platform team
Liam Ryan | Head of Platform
For the platform team, the first half of 2025 has been split between the development of new products and improvements to our existing platform and content offerings.
A key cross team that the platform team has been working closely with our friends from the Production and IT teams relating to data quality improvements and republishing of content to the platform. The resultant Informit Search platform iterative refresh of records will deliver improvements to the accuracy and quality of our metadata, as well as related services (such as citation), whilst also reducing duplicated records in search results. The initial focus is to refresh our Public affairs, Education and Legal focussed collections.
Through Quarter 2, our primary development efforts have progressed components of an improved Informit Media offering. For media users, there will be improvements to more intuitive and curriculum aligned browsing and searching of media. We are also developing new administrative features which add flexibility and will help manage access and usage under your license.
The team is also commencing preparations for adding accessibility improvements to both the Informit platform content and interface. In line with WCAG 2.2 guidelines, we will be working closely with accessibility experts and consulting with our users to identify how we can improve access for all members of our community. If there any components of our site you would like to nominate as needing change from your point of view, we welcome your input via the Feedback widget on our site.
In platform team news, we are farewelling Manoj Sukumaran, who joined us 4 years ago. Manoj has been critical to the improvements in our Screenrights reporting as well as managing our royalties process. Manoj has resigned his position to focus on his health. The Informit team wish Manoj the very best and we are sorry to lose his expertise, professionalism and we thank him for his work with Informit.
We would like to welcome a new addition to our team, Nathan Greenough in the role of a Data & Product Analyst. Previously Nathan worked in Wellington for the Ministries of ‘Housing and Urban Development’, as well as ‘Business, Innovation and Employment’, the latter of which he worked with time critical workforce data during COVID. As well as helping us provide improved reporting metrics to our users and stakeholders, Nathan’s role is critical to support Informit in making data driven decisions to target product and service offerings that benefit you.
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Upcoming events and conferences
Thu 7 August, 4:30pm AEST
Religion, Culture and the Curriculum webinar – Online
Presented in partnership with the Australian Council for Education and featuring special guests, this free session will unpack ways to teach religion and belief systems in inclusive, respectful and inquiry-based ways. Keep an eye out for who the speakers will be shortly.
Register your interest here
Thu 28 – Fri 29 August
National Education Summit Melbourne – Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Pl, South Wharf VIC 3006
Tue 9 September
Kummargii Yulendji Symposium – RMIT University’s Storey Hall
This symposium offers a forum for the movement and communities that are Indigenising the research, libraries, and publishing sector, presenting many perspectives towards re-visioning colonial structures and systems.
Register your attendance both in-person and online here
