College & Research Libraries News vol. 83, no. 10 (November 2022) November 2022 466C&RL News Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu College graduation statistics The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred has risen consistently in the 21st century, from 1.24 million in 2000 to 2.04 million in 2020. “Bachelor’s degree seekers are statistically more likely to graduate than associate’s degree seekers. 1,018,233 college graduates earned associate’s degrees in 2020, down 1.78 percent year-over-year from 2019. 2,038,431 graduates earned bachelor’s degrees in 2020, up 1.23 percent year-over-year.” Master’s degrees (843,449) accounted for 20.6 percent of all graduates in 2020. “Table 322.10. Bachelor’s Degrees Conferred by Postsecondary Institutions, by Field of Study: Selected Years, 1970–71 through 2019–20,” Digest of Education Statistics, 2021, National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_322.10.asp. Melanie Hanson, “College Graduation Statistics: Total Graduates per Year,” Education Data Ini- tiative, last updated June 12, 2022, https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates. Media publishers’ followings across social media “Twitter is still the place where media publishers collectively have the larg- est audiences, followed by Facebook and Instagram, according to an Axios analysis of 82 major news, entertainment and sports publishers. National Geographic, by far, has the largest social following . . . with more than 340 million followers over six major platforms. The next closest publisher, the BBC, has more than 150 million followers across its main accounts on those platforms, followed by CNN and ESPN.” Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn, “For Media Publishers, Twitter Still Dominates on Social,” Axios, September 13, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/09/13/twitter-publishers-social-media. Coordinated book bans “Throughout the 2021–22 school year, more than 1,600 book titles were banned, according to a new report by the group PEN America, which advo- cates for freedom of expression. According to the report, the surge in book bans is a result of a network of local political and advocacy groups targeting books with LGBTQ+ characters and storylines, and books involving charac- ters of color. PEN America has identified at least 50 groups working at local, state, and national levels advocating for books to be removed from school curriculums and school library shelves.” Andrew Limbong, “New Report Finds a Coordinated Rise in Attempted Book Bans,” NPR, September 19, 2022, sec. Books, https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123156201/new-report -finds-a-coordinated-rise-in-attempted-book-bans. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_322.10.asp https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates http://www.axios.com/2022/09/13/twitter-publishers-social-media http://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123156201/new-report-finds-a-coordinated-rise-in-attempted-book-bans http://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123156201/new-report-finds-a-coordinated-rise-in-attempted-book-bans November 2022 467C&RL News Index of School Book Bans PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists instances where student’s access to books in school libraries and classrooms in the United States was restricted or diminished for either limited or indefinite periods from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022. Total book challenges in 2022 are set to exceed the 2021 record, with 681 attempts to ban or restrict library resources from Jan. 1–Aug. 31, 2022 and 1,651 unique titles targeted from Jan. 1–Aug. 31, 2022. “PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans (July 1, 2021–June 30, 2022),” PEN America, accessed September 26, 2022, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMB tNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit#gid=1171606318. Unite Against Book Bans—An Initiative of the American Library Association, accessed September 26, 2022, https://uniteagainstbookbans.org. Data governance ratings “A new report from George Washington University’s Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub rates 68 countries on their approaches to data governance. It scores each country on 26 indicators across six categories—for instance, whether it has a personal data protection law, publishes an open data portal, and/or says it adheres to the OECD AI Principles.” Jeremy Singer-Vine, “Employee Benefits, Cropland, Christianity in China, Data Governance, and Diplomatic Gifts,” The Markup, August 3, 2022, https://themarkup.org/data-is-plu ral/2022/08/03/employee-benefits-cropland-christianity-in-china-data-governance-and -diplomatic-gifts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit#gid=1171606318 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit#gid=1171606318 https://uniteagainstbookbans.org https://themarkup.org/data-is-plural/2022/08/03/employee-benefits-cropland-christianity-in-china-data-governance-and-diplomatic-gifts https://themarkup.org/data-is-plural/2022/08/03/employee-benefits-cropland-christianity-in-china-data-governance-and-diplomatic-gifts https://themarkup.org/data-is-plural/2022/08/03/employee-benefits-cropland-christianity-in-china-data-governance-and-diplomatic-gifts