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C&RL News February 2014  108

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.
unc.edu

G a r y  P a t t i l l o

MOOCS
“Coursera, the largest MOOC provider, has grown from 300,000 registrants taking 
seven courses in April 2012 to more than 4 million learners taking 453 courses 
today.” Nearly 90 other companies are offering MOOCs for higher education, 
K–12, and professional development.
Curtis Kendrick and Irene Gashurov, “Libraries in the Time of MOOCs,” EDUCAUSE Review, November 4, 2013, www.
educause.edu/ero/article/libraries-time-moocs (retrieved November 6, 2013).

Survey of adult skills
By international standards, despite a relatively high level of educational quali-
fications, the basic skills of adults in the United States are relatively weak. Un-
like many other countries, there has been little sign of improvement in recent 
decades. Thirty-six million adult Americans (about one in six adults) are living 
with the consequences of low literacy skills. They can, at best, read short texts 
and understand basic vocabulary. In Japan, the comparable figure is one in 
twenty. In the United States, nearly one in three have weak numeracy skills 
versus a cross country average of one in five.
OECD, “OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills,” OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/9789264204256-en (retrieved December 2, 2013).

OCLC holdings
On May 4, 2013, the number of holdings in WorldCat exceeded 2 billion. It 
took the OCLC cooperative almost 34 years, from August 26, 1971 to August 
11, 2005, to put 1 billion holding symbols in WorldCat. It took only 7 years and 
8 months to add the next billion.
OCLC, “Annual Report, 2012-2013,” www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/publications/AnnualReports/2013/2013.pdf 
(retrieved December 2, 2013).

Banned challenges increased in 2013
“In November, the Kids’ Right to Read Project [KRRP] investigated three times 
the average number of [book challenges], adding to an overall rise in cases for 
the entire year, according to KRRP coordinator Acacia O’Connor. To date, KRRP 
has confronted 49 incidents in 29 states this year (2013), a 53 percent increase 
in activity from 2012. During the second half of 2013, the project battled 31 
new incidents, compared to only 14 in the same period last year.” On the bright 
side, KRRP says it has also seen an increase in “challenged” books returned to 
the shelves following their involvement in the incidents.
“Kids Right to Read Project: Book Challenges Increased in 2013,” Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, December 18, 2013, 
www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2152#m22578 (retrieved January 8, 2014).

Website usability
“The total cognitive load, or amount of mental processing power needed to 
use your site, affects how easily users find content and complete tasks.” The 
Nielsen Norman Group, a computer interface design firm, recommends avoid-
ing visual clutter, building on existing mental models, and offloading tasks to 
increase usability of your website. 
Kathryn Whitenton, “Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability,” Nielsen Norman Group, December 22, 2013, 
www.nngroup.com/articles/minimize-cognitive-load (retrieved January 8, 2014).