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FAST FACTSC&RL News, February 2008Vol. 68, No. 2 by Gary Pattillo Public Internet access While more than 99 percent of public libraries offer Internet access, many have not kept up with increasing infrastructure demands, a trend that may have implications for demand at academic libraries. Public library branches have an average of 10.7 public access workstations. Bandwidth speed has decreased slightly, with 62.1 percent of public library branches having connection speeds of greater than 769kbps in 2007, compared to 63.3 percent in 2006. The average number of workstations has remained steady, while demand has increased. Nearly 80 percent of libraries reported that they have insufficient workstations some or all of the day. Charles McClure, Paul Jaeger, and John Bertot, “The Looming Infrastructure Plateau? Space, Funding, Connection Speed, and the Ability of Public Libraries to meet the Demand for Free Internet Access” First Monday [Online], Volume 12, Number 12 (21 November 2007), www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2017/1907. Accessed: January 3, 2008 Academic workplace satisfaction The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education reported results of a survey of general job satisfaction among faculty nationwide. Overall, faculty members at colleges were more satisfied than those at universities (4.06 versus 3.60 on a 5-point scale). Faculty members at public universities were less satisfied than their peers at private institutions (3.60 versus 3.79). Two universities (Brown and Stanford) achieved exemplary status in eight out of twelve categories surveyed. The Collaborative On Academic Careers in Higher Education, “Top Academic Workplaces,” December 5, 2007, gseacademic.harvard.edu/~coache/reports/20071205.html. Accessed: December 7, 2007 Most literate cities Among the 69 largest U.S. cities, Minneapolis is the most literate, according to an annual study that focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. Seattle, St. Paul, Denver, and Washington, D.C., round out the top five. Aurora, Colorado; Anaheim, California; El Paso, Texas; and Stockton, California, were ranked the lowest on the list of 69 cities. John W. Miller, “America’s Most Literate Cities, 2007,” www.ccsu.edu/amlc07/. Accessed: January 7, 2008 WikipediaVision WikipediaVision is a Web site that displays anonymous near real-time editing of Wikipedia, with an overlay to Google maps. Each Wikipedia edit displayed includes the title of the article, a summary of the edit, a link to the changes made to the article, geographic location of the Wikipedia user, and the time the edit happened. László Kozma. WikipediaVision, www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html. Accessed: January 11, 2008 On-demand publishing Print-on-demand publishing continues to rise in popularity. Lulu.com has published over 320,000 titles, created by people in more than 80 countries, with more than 5,000 new titles added each week. Amazon.com offers a similar service via its CreateSpace, which also produces film and audio on DVD and CD. Blurb.com makes available 11,000 self-published titles. The interfaces on these web sites now make it easier than ever to publish and make changes to books without cost to the author. Candice Choi, Associated Press Writer, “Got a manuscript? Publishing now a snap,” The Boston Globe January 1, 2008. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/01/01/got_a_manuscript_publishing_now_a_snap/ and lulu.com Web site. Accessed January 10, 2008 Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu |
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