octt16_ff.indd C&RL News October 2016 472 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 Internet platform preferences A marketing forecast this year predicts 11.7 percent of U.S. Internet users will go online exclusively through a mobile device. That number is predicted to continue to rise through at least 2020. About 7 percent are expected to use a desktop or laptop only. The rest will use a combination of devices. eMarketer, Inc., “US internet users rely on mobile devices for digital access,” March 2, 2016, www.emarketer.com/Article /US-Internet-Users-Rely-on-Mobile-Devices-Digital-Access/1013649 (retrieved September 15, 2016). Racial and ethnic trends in higher education “The 2013 total college enrollment rate for White 18- to 24-year-olds (42 percent) was higher than the rates for their Black and Hispanic peers (34 percent each). The White- Hispanic gap in the total college enrollment rate narrowed between 2003 and 2013 (from 18 to 8 percentage points); however, the White-Black gap in the total college enrollment rate did not change measurably during this period. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred to Hispanic students more than doubled between 2002–03 and 2012–13, and the number conferred to Black students increased by 54 percent. During the same period, the number of degrees conferred to Asian/Pacific Islander, White, and American Indian/ Alaska Native students increased by 48, 23, and 16 percent, respectively.” Lauren Musu-Gillette, Jennifer Robinson, Joel McFarland, Angelina KewalRamani, Anlan Zhang, and Sidney Wilkinson- Flicker, “Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2016 (NCES 2016-007),” August 2016, U.S. De- partment of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, D.C., http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016007. pdf (retrieved September 15, 2016). WorldCat The OCLC Online Union Catalog and Shared Cataloging system began operating in 1971 with 133 books cataloged on the first day. Today, WorldCat comprises more than 380 million records representing more than 2.4 billion items in libraries worldwide. OCLC Abstracts, Vol. 19, No. 34, August 24, 2016, https://www.oclc.org/content/emailcontent-et/en/abstracts /abstracts-082416.html (retrieved September 15, 2016). No comments “NPR has opted to cut comments from its site and instead focus its resources on social media as its means of engagement.” Several other companies have also eliminated the comments sections from their websites, including Bloomberg, ReCode, The Week, Popular Science, and The Atlantic. Reasons cited include lowered estimation of content, low reader participation, and the “problematic nature of pseudonymous commentators.” Michelle Manafy, “No comment: NPR joins the growing list of media companies shuttering comments,” InContext, August 23, 2016, https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2016/08/23/no-comment-npr-joins-the-growing-list-of-media-companies -shuttering-comments (retrieved September 15, 2016). Print reading preferences “Print books continue to be more popular than e-books or audio books. Fully 65 percent of Americans have read a print book in the last year, more than double the share that has read an e-book (28 percent) and more than four times the share that has consumed book content via audio book (14 percent). Some 73 percent of Americans report that they have read at least one book (in any format) in the last year.” When reading e-books, more Americans are reading them on tablets and cellphones rather than dedicated e-readers. Andrew Perrin, “Book Reading 2016,” Pew Research Center, September 2016, www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/01 /book-reading-2016 (retrieved September 15, 2016).